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MANY INVENTIONS
coming for you?' said the Crab wearily. Every human being whom the Crab killed had asked that same question.
'But I was just beginning to know what my songs were doing,' said Leo.
'Perhaps that is why,' said the Crab, and the grip tightened,
'You said you would not come till I had taken the world by the shoulders, gasped Leo, falling back.
'I always keep my word. You have done that three times with three songs, What more do you desire?'
'Let me live to see the world know it,' pleaded Leo. 'Let me be sure that my songs
''Make men brave?' said the Crab, 'Even then there would be one man who was afraid. The Girl was braver than you are. Come.'
Leo was standing close to the restless insatiable mouth.
'I forgot, said he simply. 'The Girl was braver. But I am a God too, and I am not afraid.'
'What is that to me?' said the Crab.
Then Leo's speech was taken from him and he lay still and dumb, watching Death till he died.
Leo was the last of the Children of the Zodiac. After his death there sprang up a breed of little mean men, whimpering and flinching and howling because the Houses killed them and theirs, who wished to live for ever without any pain. They did not increase their lives but they increased their own torments miserably, and there were no Children of the Zodiac to guide them; and the greater part of Leo's songs were lost.