Then far up the meadow by the roadside they could see the hard, square lines of the cross in the moonlight. Slower still they went, while the drumbeats became louder, until they seemed to fall upon their own ear-drums.
“Could he have come to this dreadful place?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
“We haven’t passed him, that’s sure; and I’ve got a notion he did. I’ve heard him talk about this cross off and on—it’s been a good deal in his mind—and maybe he was a little out of his head. But we’ll soon see.”
They walked their horses up a little ascent, and the cross stood out more clearly against the sky. They approached it slowly, leaning forward to peer all about it; but the shadows lay heavy at its base, and from a little distance they could distinguish no outline.
But at last they were close by and could pierce the gloom, and there at the foot of the cross, beside the cairn of stones that helped to support it, was a little huddled bit of blackness. It moved as they looked, and they knew the voice that came from it.
“O God, I am tired and ready! Take me and burn me!”
She was off her horse and quickly at his side. Follett, to let them be alone, led the horses to the spring below. It was almost gone now, only the feeblest trickle of a rivulet remaining. The once green meadows had behaved, indeed, as if a curse were put upon them. Hardly had grass grown or water run through it since the day that Israel wrought there. When he had tied the horses he heard Prudence calling him.
“I’m afraid he’s delirous,” she said, when he reached her side. “He keeps hearing cries and shots, and sees a woman’s hair waving before him, and he’s afraid of something back of him. What can we do?”
At the foot of the cross the little man was again sounding his endless prayer.
“Bow me, bend me, break me, for I have been soul-proud. Burn me out—”