Ì don't try to corrupt you,' I said. Ì don't believe what you believe, and you've made me your prisoner:'
"But I continued to listen to his prayers out of boredom and curiosity, and the vague fear of what was in store for me.
"I began waiting for him to come, for his pale, wraithlike figure to illuminate the barren room like a white light, for his quiet, measured voice to pour forth with
all the old melodious nonsense.
"It soon came clear that his verses did not unfold continuous stories of the gods as we knew them in Greek and Latin. But the identity and characteristics of the gods began to emerge in the many stanzas. Deities of all the predictable sorts belonged to the tribe of the heavens.
"But the god I was to become exerted the greatest hold over Mael and those he instructed. He
