side; and it seemed to
him he was alone. But I walked behind him."

"And then," asked Peter, seeing that the stranger was silent, "what
happened to him after that?"

"That was only last Sunday," said the stranger.

There was silence again for some seconds.

Then Peter said, "Well, anyhow, at least he didn't die!"

The stranger crossed his hands upon his knees. "Peter Simon Halket,"
he said, "it is easier for a man to die than to stand alone. He who can
stand alone can, also, when the need be, die."

Peter looked up wistfully into the stranger's face. "I should not like
to die myself," he said, "not yet. I shall not be twenty-one till next
birthday. I should like to see life first."

The stranger made no answer.

Presently Peter said, "Are all the men of your company poor men?"

The stranger waited a while before he answered; then he said,--"There
have been rich men who have desired to join us. There was a young man
once; and when he heard the conditions, he went away sorrowful, for he
had great possessions."

There was silence again for a while.

"Is it long since your company was started?" asked Peter.

"There is no man living who can conceive of its age," said the stranger.
"Even here on this earth it began, when these hills were young, and
these lichens had hardly shown their stains upon the rocks, and man
still raised himself upwards with difficulty because the sinews in his
thighs were weak. In those days, which men reck not of now, man, when
he hungered, fed on the flesh of his fellow man and found it sweet. Yet
even in those days it came to pass that there was one whose head was
higher than her fellows and her thought keener, and, as she picked the
flesh from a human skull, she pondered. And so it came to pass the next
night, when men were gathered around the fire ready to eat, that she
stole away, and when they went to the tree where the victim was bound,
they found him gone. And they cried one to another, 'She, only she, has
done this, who has always said, 'I like not the taste of man-flesh; men
are too like me; I cannot eat them.' 'She is mad,' they cried; 'let us
kill her!' So, in those dim, misty times that men reck not of now, that
they hardly believe in, that woman died. But in the heads of certain men
and women a new thought had taken root; they said, 'We also will not eat
of her. There is something evil in the taste of human flesh.' And ever
after, when the fleshpots were filled with man-fl