They had
called him Jad-ben-Otho. He commenced to laugh aloud and stood
up very straight and strode back and forth along the shore. "I am
Jad-ben-Otho," he cried, "I am the Great God. In A-lur is my temple
and my high priests. What is Jad-ben-Otho doing here alone in the
jungle?"
He stepped out into the water and raising his voice shrieked loudly
across toward A-lur. "I am Jad-ben-Otho!" he screamed. "Come
hither slaves and take your god to his temple." But the distance
was great and they did not hear him and no one came, and the feeble
mind was distracted by other things--a bird flying in the air, a
school of minnows swimming around his feet. He lunged at them trying
to catch them, and falling upon his hands and knees he crawled
through the water grasping futilely at the elusive fish.
Presently it occurred to him that he was a sea lion and he forgot
the fish and lay down and tried to swim by wriggling his feet in
the water as though they were a tail. The hardships, the privations,
the terrors, and for the past few weeks the lack of proper nourishment
had reduced Erich Obergatz to little more than a gibbering idiot.
A water snake swam out upon the surface of the lake and the man
pursued it, crawling upon his hands and knees. The snake swam toward
the shore just within the mouth of the river where tall reeds grew
thickly and Obergatz followed, making grunting noises like a pig.
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