"With this shield," continued the venerable warrior, "you shall protect your people from the blows of the enemy. Bring hither the sword!"
The young men brought down the sword, drawing it forth from the stiff fingers of Endovellicus.
"Bind it upon you, Alorcus," continued the wizard. "With this you shall defend us, and may it fall like a thunderbolt wherever the destiny of your people points! Advance, youthful king!"
Guided by the elder, Alorcus stepped forward to the pyre upon which his father lay. He turned away his face that he might not behold the body, fearing an outburst of grief which would force him to shed tears before his tribe.
"Swear by Neton, by Autubel, by Nabi, by Caulece, by all the gods of our tribe, and of all the tribes that people this earth and hate the foreigners who one day came from across the sea to rob us of our riches. Swear to be faithful to your people and ever to obey the counsels of the warriors of your tribe! Swear it by the body of your father, which soon will be only ashes!"
Alorcus took the oath, and the warriors pounded upon their shields again, uttering acclamations of joy.
The old warrior, with extraordinary vigor, climbed upon the logs and searched beneath the cuirass of the corpse.
"Take this, Alorcus!" he said, on descending. He handed the new chieftain a slender copper chain from which hung a disk-like case of the same metal. "This is the greatest inheritance from your father—the manumission which accompanied him at all times. There is not a warrior in Celtiberia who does not carry upon his person his poison so that he may die rather than become the slave of the conqueror. I prepared this for your father. I spent a whole moon extracting it from the wild apium, and one drop of it will kill like a lightning flash. If some day you fall vanquished, drink and die before your people behold their chieftain with a hand stricken off and serving the enemy as a slave."
Alorcus slipped the chain over his head, concealing the heirloom in his breast. Then he returned to Actæon, beneath the oaks where the ancients of the tribe were grouped.
The young men in the meadow, apprentices in the art of warfare, ran around the pyre with lighted torches. The flaming candlewood licked the resinous logs, and soon the smoke and flames began to enwrap the corpse.