"The ambuscade was well-planned, and the Southlanders had enlisted the aid of the Painted Men, to their shame be it said. So our brethren found themselves hemmed in at every point. Yet they sold their lives at a good price, and they are mourning to-day in the Southland, even as we here. Not a Doomsman set out upon his long journey to the shadowland but that a Southron was forced to bear him company. It was well done—a good fight, the sword-point driven home, and then the dropping of the curtain. Hail! a hail! to our brothers who have passed beyond."
A few wavering and uncertain voices took up the cry, but it quickly died away before the uplifted hand of Prosper, the priest. He had pushed his way through the crowd and was now standing in its outmost rank directly opposite the platform.
"There were six-score who rode away," he said, addressing himself directly to Quinton Edge. "Six-score, and how many have returned?"
An insolent question in the manner of its asking, but the Doomsman's answer matched it well.
"Four that I counted, but there may be a straggler or two to come in later. Does the Shining One no longer know where his own thunderbolts have struck, that he sends his hired servants to gather up the gossip of the market-place?"
"The All-Wise both sees and knows," retorted the priest. "It is the people you deceive who have need to look and listen, if haply they may understand. You have dared to take the name of the Shining One upon your lips; stand forth now like a man, if you would face him in his wrath."
During the past few minutes it had grown suddenly dark; the sun had disappeared and a curtain of opaque cloud was rapidly overcasting the sky; a peculiar, yellowish light had replaced the radiance of day.
"And what does your god demand that his anger may be turned away?" asked Quinton Edge. "Doubtless the daily offerings upon which his faithful priests depend for their easy, unearned living. Sides of fat beeves and measures of wheat, not forgetting a cask or two of apple-wine or corn brandy."
But the priest, disdaining to answer the taunt, had turned and was speaking directly to the people.
"Is it that you seek a deliverer and find none? But how shall the Shining One keep faith with you who turn your feet away from his sanctuary and bring no victims to his altars? Has he not called to you daily, and have you not stopped your ears? And now that ye call in turn, shall he indeed hear? Already is your woe come upon you, children of Doom. Look and listen!"