14 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I
was stretched between two towers so that it hung over the market and the folk. When he was just midway the little door opened again and a gay-coloured fellow like a clown jumped out and walked with quick steps after the first. " Go on, lame-leg," his terrible voice shouted, " go on, slow-step, smuggler, pale-face ! That I may not tickle thee with my heel ! What dost thou here between towers ? Thy place is in the tower. Thou shouldst be imprisoned. Thou barrest the free course to one who is better than thou art ! " And with each word the clown drew nearer and nearer : but when he was just one step behind the terrible thing happened, which silenced every mouth and fixed every eye : uttering a cry like a devil he jumped over him who was in his way. The latter seeing his rival conquer, lost his head and the rope; throwing down his stick he shot down quicker than it, like a whirl of arms and legs. The market and the folk were as the sea when the storm rusheth over it : everybody fled tumbling one over the other, and most there where the body was to strike the ground.
Zarathustra remained standing there and the body fell down just beside him, badly disfigured and broken, but not dead. After a while the consciousness of the fallen one coming back he saw Zarathustra kneel beside him. "What art thou doing there ?" he asked at last, " I knew it long ago that the devil would play
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