Nor were the initiations much more diverting, however dreadfully painful they must be to the virgin novitiates. Florian could not but think that some more natural paraphernalia would be preferable, would be more logical, than that horrible, cold and scaly apparatus. It was interesting, though, to note what disposition was made of the relics of Philippe d’Orléans: and in the giving of four infants also, by the old ritual, Florian took a sort of personal concern, and he watched closely, so as to see just how it was done. He was relieved to find it a simple enough matter, hardly more difficult than the gutting of a rabbit, once you had by heart the words of the invocation. Florian assumed that Janicot would in due course supply the woman whose body must serve as the altar, and Florian put the matter out of mind. Besides, to one with his respect for ancient custom and precedent, the fertility rites now in full course were interesting: he imagined that to a professed and not prudish antiquary they would be of absorbing interest, coming down, as these ceremonies did unaltered, from the dwarf races that preceded mankind proper. Still, as a whole, the Feast of the Wheel was rather tedious, Florian declared to his large neighbor. Florian had just noticed that others sat on this secluded grassbank, to both sides of him, in a twilight so vague that he could only see these other watchers of the feast were of huge stature and had unblinking shining eyes. Yes, this dim person assented, these modern ways lacked fervor and impressiveness: and matters had been infinitely better conducted, he said, in the good old days when the Sabbat was held in blasphemy against him. Florian, really interested at last, asked questions. It developed that this shadowy watcher was called Marduk. He had once been rather widely esteemed, by he had no notion how many millions of men, as the over-lord of heaven and all living creatures, in whose hands were the decrees of fate, and as the bright helper and healer from whom were hid no secrets. Apsu yonder had in those fine days conducted his blasphemies, Marduk repeated, with considerably more splendor and display. Yes, the times worsened, the thing was now done meagrely. Apsu had never been really the same, said Marduk,—with a dry chuckle, like the stirring of a dead leaf,—since Apsu lost his wife. She was called Tiamat: and, say what you might about her— “I quite agree with you. He was a far more dashing rogue,” put in another half-seen shape, “in the good times when I was the eternal source of light, the upholder of the universe, all-powerful and all-knowing, and when nobody anywhere except that rascal Anra-Mainyu was bold enough to talk back to Ahura-Madza. Yes, the times worsen in every way: and even his effrontery flags, if that is any comfort.”