The night was rainless, and when the meal was over the men, for the most part, lay or crouched near their fires—some torpid, some talking with their women; but they roused and stood upright when the ceremony began, and the headman, calling for silence, beckoned with a dirty claw to Theodore.
“Here!” said Theodore and went to him. The old man was seated on the trunk of a fallen tree; he waited till the tribesmen, one and all, had ranged themselves on either hand and then signed to Theodore to kneel.
“Give me both your hands,” he ordered—and held them between his own. As in days long past—(so Theodore remembered)—the overlord, the suzerain, had taken the hands of his vassal.... Did he remember—this latter-day barbarian—the ritual of chivalry, the feudal customs of Capet, Hohenstaufen and Plantagenet? Or was his imitation of their lordly rite unconscious?
“So that you may live and be one of us,” the old man began, “you will swear two things—to be true to your fellows and humble and meek towards God. Before God and before all of us you will take your oath; and, if you break it, may you die the death of the wicked and may fire consume you to eternity!”
The words were intoned and not spoken for the first time: the ritual of the ceremony was established, and at definite points and intervals the bystanders broke in with a mutter of approval or warning—already traditional.
“First: you will swear, till death takes you, to be our man against all perils and enemies.”
“I will be your man till death takes me,” swore Theodore, “against all perils and enemies.”
“You are witness,” said the headman, looking round, and was answered by a murmur from the listeners. The women did not join in it—they had, it seemed, no right of vote or assent; but they had drawn near, every one of them, and were peering at the ceremony from beyond the shoulders of their men.
“And now,” came the order, “you will take the oath to God, to purify your heart and renounce devil’s knowledge—for yourself and for those who come after you. Swear it after me, word by holy word—and swear it with your heart as with your lips.”
And word by word, and line by line, Theodore repeated the formula that cut him off from the world of his youth and the heritage of all the ages. It was a rhythmical formula, its phrasing often Biblical; instinctively the prophet, when he framed his new ritual, had followed the music of the old.... Written pages and the stonework of churches might perish, but the word that was spoken endured....