While I wondered whether to call an ambulance, Sung's voice came weakly out of the group around him: "I all light, please. Just give me minute."
Presently he got up, seeming none the worse. He said: "This incident shows that these evil cultists have strong magical defenses. Let us hope that the influences we have sent to counteract their malignant plots will not recoil upon us or upon Mr. Newbury. This is all we can do for the present, so let us adjourn upstairs."
I straggled up the stairs with the rest and joined them in the dressing room. In that crowded space, I tried to don my clothes without poking anyone in the eye.
I recovered my wallet from the lock box and followed the rest out into the living room. Sung's servants had prepared ice cream, cake, and coffee. Now the coven looked like any gathering of American suburban bourgeoisie.
They chattered among themselves. Most of their talk was about people I did not know. There were several of these covens, all apparently full of intriguing and scheming for power, just as in any corporation or governmental department.
Marcella came up, with a coffee cup in one hand and a slice of cake in the other. "Bill," she said, "wasn't it a thrill? It's my first Green Dragon. We ought to get together again, since you're such a fine, upstanding man." She giggled.
I admit that, for once in my otherwise happy married life, I was tempted, but only for a moment. Besides my family feelings, I have my image as a banker, sober and staid to the point of stuffiness, to maintain. I am not really so stodgy (I have even been known to vote Democratic), but it's good for business. I said:
"Yes, I guess we ought, but I've got to run along. Goodnight, Marcella."
The next day, I tried to concentrate on my business, but my mind kept wandering to the Reverend Sung's ominous remark about his spell's recoiling back on me. Of course I did not really believe it could; but still ...
The day after that, I left the Harrison Trust at noon to drive home for lunch. I saw a crowd in the street and walked towards it, wondering if there had been an accident.
It was the Master in his white robe, strolling along and talking, while peeling bills from an enormous wad and handing them to his nearest hearers. His deep voice intoned:
"... whosoever believes in me shall not perish but shall have eternal life. For I am no longer Ludwig Bergius, but the true son of God, whose spirit has taken possession of the body of that misguided mortal Bergius. I that speak unto you am he. Labor not for the food that perishes, but for the food that gives eternal life. I am the light of the world; he that follows me shall not walk in darkness ..."
The police struggled with the crowd, but the sight of money being given away was driving the people frantic. They surged and pushed. They began to shout and to claw one another to reach the Master.
A siren gave a low, tentative growl, and an ambulance nosed into the throng. Three men in white coats jumped out and, with help from the cops, pushed their way to Bergius. They took him by the arms, spoke soothingly into his ears, and led him unresisting away to the ambulance. The vehicle backed out of the crush, turned, and purred away.
Somebody tugged my sleeve. It was McGill, the treasurer. "Willy! I've been looking for you. Know what's happened? Mrs. Dalton and the rest have been coming in to reinstate their accounts. They say the Master gave them back their stuff. What do you make of it?"
"I'd have to think," I said. "Right now my mind is on lunch."
Later, Esau Drexel said: "Well, Willy, I guess your Taiwanese shaman earned his grand. No more sendings of snakes?"
"No."
"Luckily we've got a good county mental hospital. Might even cure this so-called Master."
"Do you want that?" I asked.
"Oh, I see. You think he might go back to culting." He sighed. "I don't know. We can assume that Sung is a faker like the rest. In that case, Bergius' mind just cracked under the strain of messiahship, so he succumbed to delusions of divinity, irrespective of Sung's spells.
"Or we can assume that Sung's treatment really worked the change in the man. In that case, was Bergius a real representative of some Interstellar Council, before the spell drove him nuts? Or was he a faker before and—and—"
"And a genuine incarnation of Jesus afterwards, you're saying?"
"Jeepers! I hadn't thought that far. Well, it's been said that, if Jesus did come again, he'd be locked up as a lunatic." Drexel gave a little shudder. "I don't like to think about it. Let's tackle something easy, like the relation between the rediscount rate and the rate of inflation."
The Huns
On one of our vacations at Lake Algonquin, my Aunt Frances said: "Willy, Phyllis wants you to come over to Panther Falls to help her sell Wilderfarm."
"Oh?" I said. "I didn't know Aunt Phyllis was planning to sell."
"Well, she is. Will you go?"
"Look, Aunt Frances, I'm a banker, not a real-estate broker; and I don't practice in New York State anyway—"
"You still know more about mortgages and things than poor Phyllis ever will."
"Why is she selling?"
"She says it's too much place to keep up by herself, now that her children have moved away. Says she's too old to manage. The fact is, she's just too fat. If she'd control her appetite ... Besides, she said something about peculiar things happening lately."
"Eh? What? If she's got spooks, let her get an exorcist. I've bumped into enough of that stuff to last me—"
"I didn't say spooks, Willy."
"Then what?"
"Some sort of terror gang, I take it."
"That's a job for the troopers."
Frances Colton sighed. "Willy, you are deliberately being evasive. I'm not asking you to cast out devils or fight a gang of juvenile delinquents. I'm only asking you to give poor Phyllis some advice on selling the place. Some developer wants to take it over. Will you go?"
I sighed in turn. "I was going to take Stevie trolling for bass tomorrow."
"If the weather's good, take him; but the first rainy day, you can go over to the Falls. It's only an hour."
Two days later, leaving Denise to cope with our three restless adolescents, I drove to Gahato. I stopped at Bugby's Garage for gas and an oil change. While this was being done, I stood in the drizzle in my slicker, watching the locals walk past. I said howdy to a few whom I knew.
Then I sighted Virgil Hathaway, with his hair in two long black braids. Virgil has been friendly ever since I arranged a small bank loan for him when he was hard up in the fifties. Nowadays, with all the publicity about the poor Indian, Virgil does all right; but he still remembers a favor.
"Hello, Virgil," I said. "How's Chief Soaring Turtle these days?"
Hathaway's copper-hued visage wringled into a grin. "Can't rightly complain, leastaways not as far as the old lady and me be concerned."
"Then what?"
He shrugged. "Oh, I dunno. The kids are grown up, and they've quit the Indian business."
"You mean they're assimilating?"
"Ayuh. The girl's working for the telephone company, and Calvin's got a job as an engineer. Makes more money in a week than I ever did in a month, selling my toy canoes and moccasins and things. Worst of it is, he's planning to marry some white girl."
"Ts, ts, Virgil; don't tell me you've got racial prejudices!"
"Yep, I guess I do. At this rate, there wunt be no more Indians left at all. All mixed into the mass."
"Well, you Penobscots acquired a good deal of white blood over the centuries."
Hathaway grinned. "Sure. In the old days, when we entertained a visiting white man, we sure entertained him. If he left a few half-breeds behind, that was more warriors for the tribe. But that's all over and done with. How be you?"