Chub recovered himself.
“It's Baal's funeral.”
“Just so.”
He sat down on a stone and wiped his face, which was heated. He carried a notable stick in his hand. “Baal! We-ell, what ailed him?”
“Are you Silvia's old man?” asked Chub.
“Just so—er—what ailed Baal?”
Then we told him—seeing Baal was dead and the Vows would have to be taken over again—we told him about Baal, and about the Leather Hermit, because he seemed touched by it, and worked his face and blinked his sharp hard eyes uncannily. Some hidden vein of grim ideas was coming to a white heat within him, like a suppressed molten stratum beneath the earth, unsuspected on its surface, that suddenly heaves and cracks the faces of stone cliffs. He gave way at last, and his laughter was the rending tumult of an earthquake.
Aaron and Silvia came up through the woods hastily to the altar-stone.
“I say,” cried Chub. “Are you going to lick them? It's two to Aaron for one to Silvia.”
“Been marryin' and multiplying have ye?”