“This,” said the Ranger, “is where our orders tell us to fling any foreign devil who comes over from the other side.  I have only been Head Ranger about nine months, and have not yet had to face this horrid duty; but,” and here he smiled, “when I first caught sight of you I thought I should have to make a beginning.  I was very glad when I saw you had a permit.”

“And how many skeletons do you suppose are lying at the bottom of this pool?”

“I believe not more than seven or eight in all.  There were three or four about eighteen years ago, and about the same number of late years; one man was flung here only about three months before I was appointed.  I have the full list, with dates, down in my office, but the rangers never let people in Sunch’ston know when they have Blue-Pooled any one; it would unsettle men’s minds, and some of them would be coming up here in the dark to drag the pool, and see whether they could find anything on the body.”

My father was glad to turn away from this most repulsive place.  After a time he said, “And what do you good people hereabouts think of next Sunday’s grand doings?”

Bearing in mind what he had gleaned from the Professors about the Ranger’s opinions, my father gave a slightly ironical turn to his pronunciation of the words “grand doings.”  The youth glanced at him with a quick penetrative look, and laughed as he said, “The doings will be grand enough.”

“What a fine temple they have built,” said my father.  “I have not yet seen the picture, but they say the four black and white horses are magnificently painted.  I saw the Sunchild ascend, but I saw no horses in the sky, nor anything like horses.”

The youth was much interested.  “Did you really see him ascend?” he asked; “and what, pray, do you think it all was?”

“Whatever it was, there were no horses.”

“But there must have been, for, as you of course know, they have lately found some droppings from one of them, which have been miraculously preserved, and they are going to show them next Sunday in a gold reliquary.”

“I know,” said my father, who, however, was learning the fact for the first time.  “I have not yet seen this precious relic, but I think they might have found something less unpleasant.”

“Perhaps they would if they could,” replied the youth, laughing, “but there was nothing else that the horses could leave.  It is only a number of curiously rounded stones, and not at all like what they say it is.”

“Well, well,” continued my father, “but relic or no relic, there are many who, while they fully recognise the value of the Sunchild’s teaching, dislike these cock and bull stories as blasphemy against God’s most blessed gift of reason.  There are many in Bridgeford who hate this story of the horses.”

The youth was now quite reassured.  “So there are here, sir,” he said warmly, “and who hate the Sunchild too.  If there is such a hell as he used to talk about to my mother, we doubt not but that he will be cast into its deepest fires.  See how he has turned us all upside down.  But we dare not say what we think.  There is no courage left in Erewhon.”