They
are called Waz-ho-don and their village is partly made up of cave
dwellings and partly of houses carved from the soft rock at the
foot of the cliff. They are very ignorant and superstitious and
when they first saw me and realized that I had no tail and that my
hands and feet were not like theirs they were afraid of me. They
thought that I was either god or demon. Being in a position where
I could neither escape them nor defend myself, I made a bold
front and succeeded in impressing them to such an extent that they
conducted me to their city, which they call Bu-lur, and there they
fed me and treated me with kindness. As I learned their language
I sought to impress them more and more with the idea that I was a
god, and I succeeded, too, until an old fellow who was something of
a priest among them, or medicine-man, became jealous of my growing
power. That was the beginning of the end and came near to being the
end in fact. He told them that if I was a god I would not bleed if
a knife was stuck into me--if I did bleed it would prove conclusively
that I was not a god. Without my knowledge he arranged to stage
the ordeal before the whole village upon a certain night--it was
upon one of those numerous occasions when they eat and drink to
Jad-ben-Otho, their pagan deity. Under the influence of their vile
liquor they would be ripe for any bloodthirsty scheme the medicine-man
might evolve.
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