To his surprise, the translation of this was greeted by unmistakable twitterings of gladness. The members of the adulterous group turned to each other with excited gestures, and Weaver saw a pairing-off process begin, with much discussion.

He asked Mark about it later, as they were leaving the village. "How is it that they did this thing before—for more variety, as you say—and yet seem so glad to stop?"

Mark's answer was: "They very glad to do whatever thing you say. You bring them new thing, they very happy."

Weaver mused on this, contentedly on the whole, but with a small undigested kernel of uneasiness, until they reached the next village. Here he found a crowd of Terranovans of both sexes and all ages at a feast of something with a fearful stench. He asked what it was; Mark's answer had better not be revealed. Feeling genuinely sick with revulsion, Weaver demanded, "Why do they do such an awful thing? This is ten times worse than the other."

This time Mark answered without hesitation. "They do this like the other, for more change. Is not easy to learn to like, but they do, so not to make themselves have tiredness."

There were three more such incidents before they reached the village where they were to sleep that night; and Weaver lay awake in his downy bed, staring at the faint shimmer of reflected starlight on the carved roof-beams, and meditating soberly on the unexpected, the appalling magnitude of the task he had set himself.

From this, he came to consider that small dark kernel of doubt. It was of course dreadful to find that his people were so wholly corrupt, but that at least was understandable. What he did not understand was the reason they could be so easily weaned from their wickedness. It left him feeling a little off-balance, like a man who has hurled himself at his enemy and found him suddenly not there. This reminded him of ju-jitsu, and this in turn of the ancient Japanese—to whom, indeed, his Terranovans seemed to have many resemblances. Weaver's uneasiness increased. Savage peoples were notoriously devious—they smiled and then thrust knives between your ribs.

He felt a sudden prickling coldness at the thought. It was improbable, it was fantastic that they would go to such lengths to gratify his every wish if they meant to kill him, he told himself; and then he remembered the Dionysian rites, and a host of other, too-similar parallels. The king for a day or a year, who ruled as an absolute monarch, and 

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