“But what that Yezidee is doing is—is blasphemous——”
“Watch him! His mind is stealthily feeling its way among the laws and secrets of the Tchor-Dagh. He has found a thread. He is following it through the maze into hell’s own labyrinth! He has created a tiny thing in the image of the Creator. He will try to create a larger being now. Watch him with his Ginseng roots!”
Tiyang, looming ape-like on his haunches in the deepening dusk, moulded and massaged the Ginseng roots, one after another. And one after another, tiny naked creatures wriggled out of his palms between his fingers and scuttled away into the herbage.
Already the dim lawn was alive with them, crawling, scurrying through the grass, creeping in among the flower-beds, little, ghostly-white things that glimmered from shade into shadow like moonbeams.
Tressa’s mouth touched her husband’s ear:
“It is for the secret of Destruction that the Yezidee seeks. But first he must learn the secret of creation. He is learning.... And he must learn no more than he has already learned.”
“That Yezidee is a living man. Shall I fire?”
“No.”
“I can kill him with the first shot.”
“Hark!” she whispered excitedly, her hand closing convulsively on her husband’s arm.