He went down the road, collected his little knot of listeners, and began the Song of the Girl. In the middle of his singing he felt the cold touch of the Crab's claw on the apple of his throat. He lifted his hand, choked, and stopped for an instant. "Sing on, Leo," said the crowd. "The old song runs as well as ever it did." Leo went on steadily till the end, with the cold fear at his heart. When his song was ended, he felt the grip on his throat tighten. He was old, he had lost the Girl, he knew that he was losing more than half his power to sing, he could scarcely walk to the diminishing crowds that waited for him, and could not see their faces when they stood about him. None the less he cried angrily to the Crab: "Why have you come for me _now_?" "You were born under my care. How can I help coming for you?" said the Crab, wearily. Every human being whom the Crab killed had asked that same question. "But I was just beginning to know what my songs were doing," said Leo. "Perhaps that is why," said the Crab, and the grip tightened. "You said you would not come till I had taken the world by the shoulders," gasped Leo, falling back. "I always keep my word. You have done that three times, with three songs. What more do you desire?" "Let me live to see the world know it," pleaded Leo. "Let me be sure that my songs----" "Make men brave?" said the Crab. "Even then there would be one man who was afraid. The Girl was braver than you are. Come." Leo was standing close to the restless, insatiable mouth. "I forgot," said he, simply. "The Girl was braver. But I am a God too, and I am not afraid." "What is that to me?" said the Crab. Then Leo's speech was taken from him, and he lay still and dumb, watching Death till he died. Leo was the last of the Children of the Zodiac. After his death there sprang up a breed of little mean men, whimpering and flinching and howling because the Houses killed them and theirs, who wished to live forever without any pain. They did not increase their lives, but they increased their own torments miserably, and there were no Children of the Zodiac to guide them, and the greater part of Leo's songs were lost. Only he had carved on the Girl's tombstone the last verse of the Song of the Girl, which stands at the head of this story. One of the children of men, coming thousands of years later, rubbed away the lichen, read the lines, and applied them to a trouble other than the one Leo meant. Being a man, men believed that he had made the verses himself; but they belong to Leo, the Child of the Zodiac, and teach, as he taught, that what comes or does not come, we must not be afraid. III THE BRIDGE BUILDERS