But when he
noticed the manner in which Azuma-zi hung about the monster he
became suspicious. He dimly perceived his assistant was "up to
something," and connecting him with the anointing of the coils with
oil that had rotted the varnish in one place, he issued an edict,
shouted above the confusion of the machinery, "Don't 'ee go nigh
that big dynamo any more, Pooh-bah, or a'll take thy skin off!"
Besides, if it pleased Azuma-zi to be near the big machine, it was
plain sense and decency to keep him away from it.
Azuma-zi obeyed at the time, but later he was caught bowing
before the Lord of the Dynamos. At which Holroyd twisted his arm
and kicked him as he turned to go away. As Azuma-zi presently
stood behind the engine and glared at the back of the hated
Holroyd, the noises of the machinery took a new rhythm, and sounded
like four words in his native tongue.
It is hard to say exactly what madness is. I fancy Azuma-zi
was mad. The incessant din and whirl of the dynamo shed may have
churned up his little store of knowledge and his big store of
superstitious fancy, at last, into something akin to frenzy. At
any rate, when the idea of making Holroyd a sacrifice to the Dynamo
Fetich was thus suggested to him, it filled him with a strange
tumult of exultant emotion.
That night the two men and their black shadows were alone in
the shed together.
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