s the
young fellow produced a roll of paper and began to read the statement
he had drawn up. It was diffuse and wordy, as most of such documents
are, but the main facts were quite plain.

The two young men were assistants in a shop in the city. Some little
time before, the master of the shop, without telling either of them,
concealed in a chosen place a sum of one hundred dollars, which he
wished to have in readiness in order to pay for certain goods he had
purchased. The previous day, when he went to get the money on the
presentation of the bill, he found to his horror that it had
disappeared. He had told no one of this secret hoard, not even his
wife; and therefore he felt convinced that in some way or other one of
his two assistants had discovered his hiding-place. For some reason
his suspicions became aroused against the man who was now detailing his
grievances, and who was appealing to the god to set in motion all the
tremendous forces at his command, not only to proclaim his innocence
but also to bring condign punishment on the real culprit.

The scene was a weird and fascinating one, and became most exciting as
the young man neared the end of his appeal. He called upon the god to
hurl all the pains and penalties in his unseen armoury against the man
who had really stolen the money.

"Let his life be one long torture," he cried with uplifted hands. "May
every enterprise in which he engages end in disaster; may his father
and mother die, and let him be left desolate; may a subtle and
incurable disease lay its grip upon him; may misfortune pursue him in
every shape and form; may he become a beggar with ulcered legs and sit
on the roadside and beseech the passers-by, in sunshine and in storm,
for a few cash that will just help to keep him alive; may he never have
a son to perpetuate his name or to make offerings to his spirit in the
Land of Shadows; may madness seize upon him so that his reason shall
fly and he shall be a source of terror to his fellow-men; and finally,
may a tragic and horrible death bring his life to a sudden end, even as
I bring to an end the life of this white cock that I have brought with
me."

As he uttered these last words he grasped a chopper, and with one sharp
and vicious blow cut off the head of the struggling animal, which
wildly fluttered its wings in the agonies of death, whilst its
life-blood poured out in a stream on the ground.

He then took his petition, and advancing c