I looked over at Trastevera where she sat close to her husband. I saw her look doubtfully; write with her finger in the dust. Then I saw that no Outlier looked at any other, but down or up. I thought I understood that though they agreed with the judgment, no one wished to assume the responsibility and drink so deeply of the Cup. It had not yet occurred to me that there was any other way in which complete forgetfulness could be secured.
I saw Persilope search his people slowly with his glance before he spoke in a voice heard to the outer ring.
“Outliers, are you all here?”
It was followed by the rustle and murmur by which they took account of themselves and of those left beyond River Ward with the wounded. The murmur, swelled to affirmation, passed from group to group and was handed up to Persilope by the nearest council-men.
“We are all here.”
“Know then,” he said, his voice and words shaping to formality and sounding drearily in the white aching noon, “that there is a service to be performed for the common good, and a penalty to be undertaken. The Council leaves it open to any man who loves the common good so much, now to offer himself. Is there any so offers?”
And still the eye of no Outlier sought any other eye, only I saw Trastevera look up from her drawing and, leaning a little past the others, gaze steadily toward some spot beyond her with a long, compelling look. Before I could follow it to its point of attention, almost before Persilope had done speaking, I saw Noche getting on his feet, blinking a little as though the light abashed him, and fumbling embarrassedly at his girdle like a child.
“If I should be counted worthy ... if I could be trusted again....” He shook with eagerness. “Tribesmen, it is my right, for it was through my doddering old tongue the secret escaped.... Ask him.” He pointed to Ravenutzi. “He said so; ask them.” His great, gnarly arm, like the stump of an oak, was stretched toward Prassade and Mancha, and it trembled like an oak when the axe is at its roots. “Ask them if he did not say so at the Place of Caves ... though I would have died rather....”
“It was from my hand the Ward was loosed ... under my eyes he seduced her mind ... fool, fool!” This was the voice of Waddyn, who rose up in his place behind Noche, tall and very gaunt, as some old wolf of the wilderness. He struck himself on the breast. “We are old men,” he said, “shall we have discredit at the last? Chief, are we accepted?”
In their eagerness he and Noche had struck hands together like two children come to beg a holiday, dropping apart as the murmur of acceptance ran among the Outliers and made them men again. “You are accepted,” announced Persilope. So they sat down again, each in his place, quite contented.