'It was stalking you,' I said, the kaiila moving uneasily beneath me.
'Sweetness be unto you,' said the fellow.
'Did you not realize the danger in which you stood? I asked. 'You could havebeen killed.'
'It is fortunate, then, that you intervened,' be said.
'Are you so brave,' I asked, 'that you faced the beast so calmly?'
'What is life? What is death?' he asked. 'Both are unimportant.'
I looked at the fellow, puzzled. Then I looked, too, to the others, standingabout. I saw now they wore gray dresses, probably their only garments. The hemsof these dresses fell between their knees and their ankles. Men, they appearedungainly and foolish in these garments. Their shoulders were slumped. Their eyeswere spiritless and empty. Rags were bound about their feet. I saw, however, tomy interest, that two of them now held feathered lances.
I looked again to the fellow who had been most threatened by the beast.
'Sweetness be unto you,' he said, smiling.
I saw then that he had not been brave. It had been only that he had little tolive for. Indeed, I wondered if he had been courting destruction. He had noteven raised his shovel to defend himself.
'Who are you?' I asked these fellows.
'We are joyful dung,' said one of the fellows, 'enriching and beautifying theearth.'
'We are sparkles on the water, making the streams pretty,' said another.
'We are flowers growing in the fields,' said another.
'We are nice,' said another.
'We are good,' said another.
I then again regarded he who seemed to be foremost among them, he who had calledhimself Pumpkin.
'You are leader here?' I asked.
'No, no!' he said. 'We are all the same. We are sames! We are not not-the-sames!' In this moment he had showed emotion, fear. He moved back,putting himself with the others.
I regarded them.
'We are all equal,' he said. 'We are all the same.'
'How do you know?' I asked.
'We must be equal,' he said. 'It is the teaching.'
'Is the teaching true?' I asked.
'Yes,' said the man.
'How do you know?' I asked.
'It is the test of truth,' he said.
'How do you know?' I asked.
'It is in the teaching,' he said.
'Your teaching, then,' I said, 'is a circle, unsupported, floating in the air.'
'The teaching does not need support,' said the fellow. 'It is in and of itself: It is a golden circle, self- sustained and eternal.'
'How do you know?' I asked.
'It is in the teaching itself,' said a fellow.
'What of your reason?' I asked. 'Do you have any use for it?'
'Reason is very precious,' said a fellow.
'Properly understood and employed it is fully compatible with the teaching, and,in its highest office, exists to serve the teaching.'
'What, then, of the evidence of your senses?' I asked. 'The senses arenotoriously untrustworthy,' said one of the fellows.
'What in the senses might seem to confirm the teaching may be kept,' said one ofthem. 'What might, mistakenly, seem incompatible with the teaching is to bedisregarded.'
'What arguments, or what sorts of evidence, if it could be produced,' I asked,'might you take as indicating the falsity of the teaching?'
'Nothing is to be permitted to indicate the falsity of the teaching,' said thefellow who had been foremost among them.
'That is in the teaching,' explained another one of them.
'A teaching which cannot be disconfirmed cannot be confirmed, either,' I said.
'A teaching which cannot, even in theory, be disconfirmed is not true, butempty. If the world cannot speak to it, it does not speak of the world. Itspeaks of nothing. It is babble, twaddle as vacant as it is vain and inane.'
'These are deep matters,' said the fellow I had taken to be their leader. 'Asthey are not in the teaching, we need not concern ourselves with them.'
'Are you happy?' I asked. Verbal formulas, even vacuous ones, like music ormedicine, I knew, might have empirical effects. So, too, of course, tight havetruncheons and green fruit.
'Oh, yes,' said the first fellow quickly. 'We are wondrously happy.'
'Yes,' said several of the others.
'Sweetness be unto you,' said another.
'You do not seem happy,' I said. I had seldom seen a more tedious, bedraggled,limp set of organisms.
'We are happy,' insisted one of them.
'True happiness,' said another, 'is keeping the Teaching.'
I drew forth my blade, suddenly, and drew it back, as though to slash at theforemost fellow. He lifted his head and turned his neck toward me. 'Peace, andlight, and tranquility, and contentment and goodness, be unto you,' he said.
'Interesting,' I said, thrusting the blade back in my scabbard.
'Death holds few terrors for those who have never known life,' said Grunt. — 'What is life? What is death?' asked the fellow. 'Both are unimportant.'
'If you do not know what they are,' I said, 'perhaps you should not prejudge theissue of theft importance.'
I looked over to the two fellows who held the feathered lances. 'Where did youfind those lances?' I asked.
'In the grass,' said one of them. 'They were lost in the battle.'
'Was it your intention to use them, to defend yourselves from the beast?' Iasked.
'No,' said the fellow. 'Of course not.'
'You would prefer to be eaten?' I asked.
'Resistance is not permitted,' said the fellow.
'Fighting is against the teaching,' said the other fellow, he with the secondlance.
'We abhor violence,' added another.
'You lifted the lances,' I said. 'What were you going to do with them?'
'We thought you might wish to fight the beast,' said one. 'Thusly, in thatinstance, we would have tendered you a lance.'
'And for whom,' I asked, 'Was the second lance?'
'For the beast,' said the fellow with the first lance.
'We would not have wanted to anger it,' said the fellow with the second lance.
'You would let others do your fighting for you,' I asked, 'and you would haveabided the outcome?'
'Yes,' said the fellow with the first lance. 'Not all of us are as noble andbrave as Pumpkin.'
'Who are these people?' I asked Grunt.
'They are Waniyanpi,' said Grunt. 'They have the values of cowards, and ofidiots and vegetables.'
The coffle, by now, had approached. I noted that none of the Waniyanpi liftedtheir eyes to assess the scantily clad loveliness of Grunt's chained properties.
I again regarded Pumpkin who seemed, despite his denial, first among them.
'To whom do you belong?' I asked.
'We belong to Kaiila,' said Pumpkin.
