Just before the dawn-streak she must have slept, for a voice and a presence were in the hut, her husband's; but not as she had hoped to see and to hear him, with a clear doom-word as to whom she was to hold to account for his death; no, nor as she had known him these many years, a grey, massive familiar figure. He returned to her smiling and bland, youthful, exquisitely beautiful and young, the happy bridegroom of her youth, who had been the first to hail her as chieftainess of the tribe. She exclaimed with rapture, spread her arms for him, and—he was gone. She was alone with the corpse.... "He needs me!" she said. "Wait for me, Pŭl-Yūn. I will not be long!"
In one moment her resolve was taken. All her life had been a series of swiftly-taken intuitive decisions, this was the last. The drowsing watchers without found her standing in the rift of the hanging skins before the doorway. "Wood," was her word. "Bring wood—much wood, let every man, woman and child bring a faggot, dry and fit. Your lord is a-cold and I am minded to warm him."
There was something terrible in the calmness and intensity of her face, although the words were wild enough, for, what shall a man need with a stack of dry kindling at midsummer?
"This will surely be a very great and sore burning," muttered this one and that as they went their ways to the forest. Hardly dared man or woman look one upon another, so heavily lay upon all the dread of an accusation of witchcraft, of having commerced with the Unseen Powers of Darkness to the hurt of their chief.
This is the canker of savage life, the haunting, still-impending secret terror that walketh in darkness, from which few uncivilised communities are long free.
Of this the Sun-and-Moon-Men had known little or nothing for the space of four generations. The dominant personality of the Master-Girl had brooked no interference from self-chosen mystery-mongers; sixty years of splendid health, unshaken by wound or accident, had afforded scant openings for the medicine-man. As High-Priestess of the Moon-rite she had been a law unto herself and to her people, nor had her unbroken sequence of success in war provided occasions for witch-smellings or human sacrifices. Yet, as in the southern Europe of our day the habit of delation has survived the Inquisition, so among the people of her tribe oral tradition of the dread ritual persisted, the rusted and long-disused machinery for exorcism and inquest for necromancy lay ready to hand, and might be put together and set a-working at any juncture, should authority but crook its little finger in signal. Yes, now was the time, and before night a score of their best warriors and handsomest women might be expiating the crime of "overlooking" the dying chief.
Deep-rooted indeed must be this antique belief, since it died out in our England only within human memory (if it be truly dead) and still survives in the Celtic Fringe. The sensitive, impressionable poetical Welshman is a thousand years nearer to his past than his fellow-subject of King Edward across Offa's Dyke. In broad daylight, nay, by gas-and-candle-light, the man is as we, and in one or two of the arts is more than we; he professes, and truly believes, some evangelical creed, and glances askance at the superstitious mummeries of the detested Establishment; but, let sickness, sorrow or misfortune strike him, and, in the deep overhung country lanes, or by the hearth whilst mountain winds rumble in the stone chimney, he begins to doubt. The Old Faith, the doggerel charms, the scraps of nurse-lore, may there not be something in them after all? He can whisper his misgivings to his brother Celt in their native speech, it seems natural, possible, probable, but, to a question put to him in the English he stiffens, or more probably puts on that impenetrable air of simplicity which has baffled the keenest seeker for folk-lore.
As for his cousin across St George's Channel, is it yet ten years since a poor epileptic woman was held down and burned to death upon her own hearthstone by her husband, family and neighbours with atrocious circumstances, and according to some immemorial rite which might have been lifted straight from Mashonaland or the days of the Cave Men?
Heavy of heart the wood-collectors departed upon their quests, heavy of heart, but light of heel. Woe to the laggard who hung back, to the woman whose bundle was small, or who seemed to fear, and to avoid the eye of the great chieftainess. Before mid-day every faggot was ready—where should the pile be built?—where were the stakes?
Dêh-Yān, hollow-eyed and of an ominous mien, paced the circle, took note of the burdens, then, whilst all throats grew tight and dry, and all breaths thickened, their ruler with regal wave of arm bade bear the wood to the inner stockade and pile it round the royal wigwam. There was a general movement to carry out her orders, this was no time for questioning. Whilst this black mood of their chieftainess held, and whilst her mate lay silent within (sick?—possessed?—overlooked?—forespoken?—not dead, oh, surely not dead!) at such a juncture, with the air thick with doubt and suspicion, prompt, blind, implicit obedience was safest. What this last order meant who could guess? Many were guessing. What might come next, who dare surmise?—yet all were surmising.