He went out and up the stairs, and Murray, after a moment's hesitation, followed him.
But our reprieve was brief. The next morning an augmented force of jailers appeared. The thongs on our arms were tightened; our legs were unlashed; and we were marched up into the wintry sunshine again, our eyes blinking at the unwonted light.
The village was deserted, and we perceived the reason when we reached the Council-Place and saw the long row of stakes which stretched before the background of the green firs of the Evil Wood. Jeers and cries of derision greeted us.
The False Faces strung their ill-omened circle around us, and the feather-tufted Keepers and their women and children pressed close to view the gruesome spectacle. We were bound to the stakes, Ta-wan-ne-ars and I in the middle of the line; and almost at once the torturing began upon the unfortunates at the two extremities. Their songs and shouts of defiance soon gave way to a sinister silence, as they fought with all their will-power to curb the agony which bade them cry for mercy.
The horror of it first sickened me, then flogged me into a red-hot tempest of anger. And in the midst of the orgy of bestiality Murray and de Veulle penetrated the circle of False Faces, with Marjory, white-faced, tight-lipped, between them. They walked up to the stake to which I was bound.
"I deeply regret, my dear," said Murray in a voice which was conscientiously paternal, "that you must be exposed to this spectacle——"
"'Tis no more distressing than the knowledge of your wickedness," she flashed. "You have overset my belief in a cause I had thought holy."
"Well, we will not talk politics, if you please," he replied. "I want you to realize now beyond question the fate which awaits this misguided young man upon whom you have been so ill-advised as to pin your affections."
"Would you like to walk nearer the other stakes and study what has been done to the Senecas upon whom the torture has been begun?" suggested de Veulle suavely.
She eyed him with such scorn that even he felt it, for his face hardened appreciably.