Supper was brought. The Celtiberians were not accustomed to eating at table like the people of the coast. They remained seated on the stone bench. The women placed beside them a wheaten loaf, instead of the acorn bread which was commonly eaten, this being an extraordinary feast. Others passed a great vessel filled with chunks of roasted meat still dripping blood, and each warrior speared a piece with the point of his knife. Horns overflowing with liquor circulated from hand to hand, and Actæon accepted with graceful mien whatever his neighbors, in hospitable phrase which he could not understand, offered him.
Supper being ended, the young men of the tribe came in with trumpets and flutes, and began to play a bizarre air which combined the joy of the chase with the fury of their charge upon the enemy in battle. The guests were aroused, and the youngest among them, springing into the centre of the room, began to dance with gymnastic freedom. It was the dance with which the Celtiberians terminated their banquets, a violent exercise which put their muscles to the test, and caused them to regain their spirit even in moments of greatest depression.
Long before midnight the warriors retired, leaving Alorcus and Actæon alone in the great smoke-filled room, where sputtered the torches, tingeing the barbaric decorations on the walls with a blood-like hue. They slept on couches of aromatic herbs, without removing their clothing, their weapons near them, as slept all the tribe, ever fearful of attack from neighbors tempted by the multitude of their flocks.
At daybreak they went down to the meadow where the body of Endovellicus was exposed. The whole tribe was gathered on the plain near the river; the young men on horseback with their lances, and in full armor; the old men seated in the shade of the oak trees; the women and children near the pyre of logs upon which lay the corpse of their chief.
Endovellicus was arrayed in his war costume. His faded hair escaped beneath the borders of his triple-crested helmet; his silvery beard rested upon a cuirass of bronze scales; his muscular arms were naked, and his hands were clasped over the Celtiberian sword, short and slender, with broadened point, and his legs were bound by the broad straps of his sandals. His shield, engraved with a representation of the gods of the tribe struggling with two lions, served as a cushion for his head.
When the two young men arrived the same elder who had spoken to Alorcus the day before advanced. He was the wisest of the tribe, and had counselled Endovellicus many times before undertaking audacious expeditions. Under extraordinary circumstances he had laid open with his sacred knife the viscera of his prisoners to read the future in the quiverings of their entrails. Again he had cut off the hands of the conquered to dedicate them to the god of the tribe, nailing them to the chieftain's door to placate the divinity. Mystery used him as a mouthpiece and all the tribe regarded him with awe and fear, as if he were capable of changing the course of the sun and of destroying in a night the crops of an enemy.
"Advance, son of Endovellicus!" he said solemnly. "Look upon your people who choose you as most valiant and most worthy to succeed your father!"
He questioned the assemblage with a look, and the warriors answered by beating on their shields, uttering the same shouts with which they infuriated themselves on plunging into battle.
"You have become our king!" continued the elder. "You shall be father and guardian of your people! That you may fulfill your mission receive the great inheritance of your father! Bring hither the shield."
Two young men climbed to the top of the pyre, and raising Endovellicus' head, they brought down the shield engraved with the image of the god, and delivered it to Alorcus.