Yermah stood with his hands clasped and head bowed low. His dejection and silence angered Rahula still more, because she instinctively felt that he was right, and that she could not provoke him into a show of resistance. She hated him for the sympathy he had unconsciously aroused.
“Finally, I demand this body of thee, Hirach!
“Bloody deeds shall follow thy refusal. Never canst thou make it right to bless this man, while Alcamayn’s shade is doomed to wander through myriad years because of him. I charge thee to weigh and consider thy decision!”
Hirach, using the flail for a baton, waved for silence.
Then the two intercessors, earth and water, arose and pointed to the left. Thus far the decision was against Orondo.
The kneeling figures arose and joined the warrior-priests in supplication. The remaining intercessors, air and fire, stood and pointed to the right.
With bated breath they waited for Hirach’s action. In an impressive silence he arose and pointed to the right.
“Haille! Haille! Haille!” cried the people, in a spontaneous outburst, which a sense of decorum quickly quelled.
“Let the heart of Orondo be given back to him. Let him go into the Hall of Mystery by the Right-Hand Path,” read Imos in a sonorous voice.
As soon as the verdict was announced, the funeral cortége formed as it came, and filed out of the temple. Rahula and her followers departed to the left, with their arms crossed before their faces, and their heads drooping under the knowledge of defeat.