Grant thou the stranger wend his way
To that dim land that houses all the dead,
With no long agony or voice of woe.
For so, though many evils undeserved
Upon his life have fallen,
God, the All-Just, shall raise him up again!”
He lifted his eyes from the page as Trevanion spoke his name. He followed him to the tent. Beside it the laborers had heaped a great mass of driftwood and fagots gathered from a stunted pine-growth.
Shuffling footsteps fell behind him—he knew they were bearing the body. He averted his eyes, smelling the pungent, aromatic odors of the frankincense, wine and salt that were poured over all.
Trevanion came from the tent with a torch and put it into his hands. Gordon’s fingers shook as he held it to the fagots, but he did the work thoroughly, lighting all four corners. Then he flung the torch into the sea, climbed the slope of a dune and sat down, feeling for an instant a giddiness, half of the sun’s heat and half of pure horror.
The flames had leaped up over the whole pyre, glistening with wavy yellow and deep indigo, as though giving to the atmosphere the glassy essence of vitality itself. Save for their rustle and the shrill scream of a solitary curlew, wheeling in narrow fearless circles about the fiery altar, there was no sound.