We were glad to have a breathing time, and Nickols proposed a quiet smoke; but I would not hear of it, for the vaporous curls might be seen from below.
"Wonderful old buffer," Jack whispered with his hand to his mouth; "I believe he could out-walk us both. I shall take to bear's grease when I grow old. But I would like to shoot a match with him for his best bearskin, if the Amazon has not burned them all. By George, I shouldn't like to be that lady though, with the long pipe bearing upon me. Have you seen how his eyes flash and his lips twitch at the very name of that woman? I do believe he has arranged all this for his private satisfaction. But there goes the signal; we are to creep on carefully. Mind you don't send a stone down hill."
Taking our caps off, and stooping low so as not to jut out against the sky-line, we descended the shallow seam of rock, until we stood in a stony and briary hollow, as long and as wide as a sawpit. At the further end, brown Usi lay flat on his breast, and peered securely through a wattle of budding bush into the depth of the glen below. We joined him, and found ourselves in full command of the whole of the savage solemnity.
A heavy stone chair was planted near the middle of the valley, with a black tent just behind it. On either side about a dozen dirty but distinguished greybeards were squatting upon blocks of granite, wearing the sheepskin head-dress, and the smock with fluted cross-belt, and holding long white rods, as if in trial or in council. There was no one in the high chair as yet, but a young attendant stood on guard, smoothing now and then the pile of leopard-skin thrown over it. Further up the valley I could see a lot of Osset warriors, lounging in their usual way, some even squatting down and smoking, and scarcely any two dressed alike. Reckless fellows, and rough as wolves—it was difficult to count them; but at a guess I set them down as from eighty to a hundred, gallant men, no doubt, but looking better trained to rob than fight.
"Take it all in; shape it all to know every inch of it in your mind," Jack Nickols whispered kindly; "now is your time, George Cranleigh. It may save your life, when it comes to the rush. Did you ever see anything more lovely?"
"Very fine for the fellows who are safe up here," I answered less politely, and knowing (without advice of his) how much I had to think of.
But even in that nervous state, one could not behold without thinking about it, the strange way in which the hand of nature had cut and shaped and almost furnished a theatre of the mountains here. The sides of the glen were of yellow rock, or rather perhaps of a dun colour, nowhere less than a hundred feet in sheer height, or beetling over; while the level spread of the bottom was, like a frame drawn by a tapestry-worker, soft and rich and tissued smoothly, only of the brightest green, shot here and there with play of gold, like a carpet woven of lycopod. Usi said that the people told him snow would never lie down here, neither would any coarse weed grow, but only moss and the dews of heaven, for magnanimous heroes who slept below. And he said that the grey rocks, standing forth at the broad end we looked down upon, were tombstones, which had sprung like mushrooms where the Captains of those heroes lay.
"Imar and the lovely maiden," he said; as he struck his heel on rock, and Nickols told me what he meant, "are a hundred feet beneath us now. If you could drive an iron down, it would pierce the roof above their heads. But lo, one man has been slain already, condemned in the holy weeks and kept till now. A traitor, and an extortioner, by the black stake driven through him. The corpse is out of sight from the judgment yard, though I can see it plainly. By the dress he was of the Western races, such as you yourselves are; but a small man, weak, and of no account; perhaps an English slave purchased for his own use by Hisar.
"Now see, my son, where that horn of rock stands forth. When the wise men put their heads together, by this rope we will let thee down, if trembling cripple not thy strong limbs. The fighting men will not behold thee, because of the folding of the crag; the heads of men that are white with wisdom will be bowed into that of the wealthiest, while they whisper to one another death. And the woman will abide unseen within the tent. Therefore do thou quickly thus. As soon as thy feet are on the moss, cut the rope, stop not to untie it, fall on thy breast, and crawl into that hole—my finger shows it now—where slab of stone leans unto stone, and the body of a large heart may lie hidden. I saw it in the twilight before they caught me; but like a fool I went not in. Within twenty yards, thou wilt see the iron bars where Sûr Imar will be shackled to receive the death. Keep thy head below the brim, even as the salesman scrimps his bushel, and thine eyes as deep as his, when he seemeth to heed nothing. Thine own strong head and heart will guide thee, when it comes to stabbing. At the sight or the sound of thy downstroking we will shoot; and the Captain's force will rush up the valley. Bear in mind that thou hast chosen this; and death comes only once to man; and by the God on high, thou shalt be avenged on the wicked men that slay thee."
This ought to have been warm comfort to me, according to all great writers, and the general practice of mankind. But it failed to kindle one fibre of my system, and I dropped my eyes that the heartless slayer of many bears, and men thrice as many, might not behold the affliction in them which he would be sure to take amiss. It was not terror (I would wish to think), so much as pity for my father and dear mother, and Grace, and Harold, and the farm, and the horses, and the dogs I loved, and most of all for Dariel; also a good deal for myself, who went hand in hand with her in every thought of mine. But the less I thought and felt, the better; for the time was now to act.