Chu-bu
was jealous even for a god; and when Tuesday came again, the third day
of Sheemish's worship, Chu-bu could bear it no longer. He felt that
his anger must be revealed at all costs, and he returned with all the
vehemence of his will to achieving a little earthquake. The
worshippers had just gone from his temple when Chu-bu settled his will
to attain this miracle. Now and then his meditations were disturbed by
that now familiar dictum, "Dirty Chu-bu," but Chu-bu willed
ferociously, not even stopping to say what he longed to say and had
already said nine hundred times, and presently even these
interruptions ceased.
They ceased because Sheemish had returned to a project that he had
never definitely abandoned, the desire to assert himself and exalt
himself over Chu-bu by performing a miracle, and the district being
volcanic he had chosen a little earthquake as the miracle most easily
accomplished by a small god.
Now an earthquake that is commanded by two gods has double the chance
of fulfilment than when it is willed by one, and an incalculably
greater chance than when two gods are pulling different ways; as, to
take the case of older and greater gods, when the sun and the moon
pull in the same direction we have the biggest tides.
Chu-bu knew nothing of the theory of tides, and was too much occupied
with his miracle to notice what Sheemish was doing.
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