It ended with choice made, with a great number crying out for the choice that was made. A few voices differed from the most, but faintly and more faintly, until they were like distant cicadas. The earth was bondwoman to the voice of the many. At the close of day the law of this tribe was changed.... When the eastern side of the tree was gold there held the ancient mother-right; when the western side was gold there came upon the plain father-right.
CHAPTER VI
THE PROPHET
Halmis liked to sit by the river, among reeds or beneath willows, narrow-leaved and moving with the slenderest breath of Myr the air-sprite. Near her brothers’ house, where she lived, there lay among reeds, half drawn from the water, the ruin of a boat. It was a place to sit and think, whether the sun shone or the clouds scudded. Halmis possessed a stringed instrument of music, a thing akin to the lyre. Sometimes she brought this with her to the boat, and played upon it sitting there, hidden by the reeds. Sometimes she sang, her voice rising from the reed bed like a voice of the earth.
Ramiki likewise could make a song and sing it.
Halmis could prophesy; Ramiki likewise.
Each had, beyond the common, perception, memory, imagination, and moving gift of speech. When either recited certain things to the people of the river country, and gave advice or promised good or threatened penalty, it was called prophecy. When what they said came to pass they received great honour; when it failed they said that the time was not yet, but that the people would reach it. Halmis believed in her power. Ramiki believed in his power. While that was so, either was capable at times of inner doubt and unhappiness. But, very largely, they kept that to themselves. That course, they thought, was undeniably wiser, in the world as it was constituted. As for belief in each other’s powers, that wavered.
Halmis dwelled by the water-side. Ramiki had his home upon rising land, where he lived with his father in a well-built house guarding field and pasture. The people still thought that the old chief would give the house to Ramiki, keeping a corner for himself, and that Halmis would leave her brothers by the riverside and come into Ramiki’s house. Surely it would be advantageous to her to do so!
Halmis and Ramiki also thought, many times, that they would put hand in hand before witnesses and become man and wife. But after each time that they thought this, and before they could really speak of it to others, they quarrelled.
“I believe not in your power!” said Halmis, and she said it with scorn.
“I believe not in your power!” said Ramiki, and he said it with fierceness.