XVHunting parties, starting out in the tundra to kill wild oxen and the wolverine-like animal that supplied their silvery furs, heard the call and turned back. Fishermen, casting nets in the surf, laid down their gear and started for the rendezvous outside the temple. Boat-builders, skin-workers, arrow-makers, and bronzesmiths put aside their tools, picked up their weapons, and came hastening down the village road. Artists, painting pictures in the caves, extinguished their lamps and put down their bowls of pigment, because even such caste as theirs did not exempt them from the Call of the Four Gongs. Forgetting for the moment the desperate urgency of their own affairs, Adam and Belgrade ran with the others to the meeting place.
The news of the coming invasion ran like wild-fire through t
