Bring to us the torturers—
Grind, grind, grind.
Let them feel our power now—
Grind. Grind. GRIND!
So the metates turned and turned, going round and round without hands, and presently an Elbow-room-er that was struggling with a corn-grinder stumbled, and both fell between the grinding stones and in a moment were crushed to powder. In a flash house utensils and animals learned the new trick, and in every house manikins were pushed into the grinding stones. Then sparks began to fly and roofs to catch on fire and manikins bolted here and there in confusion, sometimes jamming in doorways, there were so many and all in such disorder. Then came dazzling, flickering lightning and a great rain, so that for very safety the manikins fled to the forest and climbed the trees. And there they have lived ever since, for they grew hair and became monkeys. But the remembrance of all that passed stayed with them, and in their hearts to this very day is no love for man, and for that very reason when a Christian passes through a forest he must look well to himself, lest the manikins in revenge try to hurt him by casting nuts and branches at his head.
RAIRU AND THE STAR MAIDEN
ERHAPS my friend Pedro of Brazil told me the story of Rairu and the Star Maiden for much the same reason that hungry men fall to talk of meals that they have eaten. When I say hungry men I do not mean men with an appetite, but men who have long been on the verge of starvation—shipwrecked sailors, men lost in the desert, and such like. The truth is that what the heart hungers for, the tongue talks of. So my friend Pedro told me many tales of his own warm land where spice-laden breezes blow gently soft, and at the time he told me his tales we two were in the midst of the snows of Tierra del Fuego, when the winds shrieked like a thousand demons and the frost-giant had bound river and lake.