“One moment, Strong,” broke in Mr. Clyde. “You’ve read this before?”
“I know what is in it, if that is what you mean. Why?”
“Nothing,” hesitated the other, glancing toward his wife and her mother. “Only, I suspect it isn’t going to be pleasant.”
“It isn’t pleasant. It’s true.”
Grandma Sharpless laid down her cards. “Let him go on, Tom,” she said decisively. “We have no ban of silence in this house.”
At a nod from Clyde, the Health Master continued:—
“Always the taboo of silence hedged the Monster about and protected him; and men secretly revolted against it, yet were restrained from speech by the fear of public dishonor. So, in time, he came to have a Scarlet Court of Shame, with his retinue of slaves, whose duty it was to procure victims for his insatiate appetite. But this service availed his servitors nothing in forbearance, for, sooner or later, his breath of fiery venom blasted and withered them, one and all.
“One refuge only did the people seek against the Monster. At every doorpost of the city stood a veiled statue of the supposed Goddess and Protectress of the Household, worshiped under the name of Modesty, and to her the people appealed for succor and protection. Also they invoked her vengeance against such as spoke the name of the Monster, and bitter were the penalties wrought upon these in her name. Nevertheless there arose martyrs whose tongues could not be silenced by any fear.
“One was a brave priest who stood in his pulpit unashamed and spoke the terrible truth of the Monster, bidding his hearers arise and band themselves together and strike a blow for their homes and their dear ones. But the people hurried forth in dread, and sought refuge before the Veiled Idol; and the priest’s words rang hollow in the empty tabernacle; and his church was deserted and crumbled away in neglect, so that the fearful said:—
“‘Behold the righteous wrath which follows the breaking of the prescribed silence.’