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"We will offer to Him a captive. He takes the sacrifice then }le is silenced, for He goes against all His teachings. Yet if He does not, we will declare Him but man and kill him, and break His body over the Idol." Along the highway to Ek-Balaam, capitol of the Sacrificers, came the Healer receiving the plaudits of the people. They strewed His pathway thick with flowers; they brought to Him their sick and injured; they cried His name; they touched His garments. Many were the mothers and fathers who held up high their little children that they might look upon the Pale One. Past the ballfields and the great parks, past the houses whitewashed neatly, past the well-kept gardens past the markets and past all the business buildings went the sandals of the Healer and behind Him like a mighty torrent, running, pushing, jostling, shoving, came the multitude of the people. He thrust aside the jeweled gateway with a gesture of derision. The first of the mob now seemed reluctant for this was the courtyard of the Bloody Tiger. Yet The Prophet had neither stopped nor looked behind Him and so, like a darn that is shattered, the people burst in and swirled around Him. Quietly He walked on through them and ascended the dreaded stairway. Halfway up He was met by the blood-smeared black-robed high priest of the Tiger. "No man dares climb these steps of the Blood God! |
HE PALE ONE went to Ek-Balaam
whose location is no longer remembered. Here the priesthood of the Tiger
waited to deceive and kill Him.