“I have found the road to a better home. I have seen the promise of a happier life. Follow me and I shall lead you thither. For the smile of the Gods is the same there as here and everywhere.”
He stopped and there went up a great cry of horror.
“Blasphemy!” cried the Old Men. “Blasphemy and sacrilege! A fit punishment for his crime! He has lost his reason. He dares to scoff at the Law as it was written down a thousand years ago. He deserves to die!”
And they took up heavy stones.
And they killed him.
And his body they threw at the foot of the cliffs, that it might lie there as a warning to all who questioned the wisdom of the ancestors.
Then it happened a short time later that there was a great drought. The little Brook of Knowledge ran dry. The cattle died of thirst. The harvest perished in the fields, and there was hunger in the Valley of Ignorance.
The Old Men Who Knew, however, were not disheartened. Everything would all come right in the end, they prophesied, for so it was writ in their most Holy Chapters.