one wild night, long after, his
only son was taken from his bed and lynched for a crime that was none
of his, as was discovered by his murderers next day. Then they killed
horribly the real criminal, and offered the father such satisfaction as
they could. They said that any one of them was ready there to be killed
by him; and they threw a weapon at his feet. At this he stood looking
upon them for a moment, his great breast heaving, and his eyes
glowering; but presently he reached out his arms, and taking two of
them by the throat, brought their heads together heavily, breaking their
skulls; and, with a cry in his throat like a wounded animal, left them,
and entered the village no more. But it became known that he had built
a rude but on Purple Hill, and that he had been seen standing beside The
Stone or sitting among the boulders below it, with his face bent upon
the village. Those who had come near to him said that he had greatly
changed; that his hair and beard had grown long and strong, and, in
effect, that he looked like some rugged fragment of an antique world.

The time came when they associated The Man with The Stone: they grew to
speak of him simply as The Man. There was something natural and apt in
the association. Then they avoided these two singular dwellers on the
height. What had happened to The Man when he lived in the village became
almost as great a legend as the Indian fable concerning The Stone. In
the minds of the people one seemed as old as the other. Women who knew
the awful disasters which had befallen The Man brooded at times most
timidly, regarding him as they did at first--and even still--The Stone.
Women who carried life unborn about with them had a strange dread of
both The Stone and The Man. Time passed on, and the feeling grew that
The Man's grief must be a terrible thing, since he lived alone with
The Stone and God. But this did not prevent the men of the village from
digging gold, drinking liquor, and doing many kinds of evil. One
day, again, they did an unjust and cruel thing. They took Pierre, the
gambler, whom they had at first sought to vanquish at his own art, and,
possessed suddenly of the high duty of citizenship, carried him to the
edge of a hill and dropped him over, thinking thereby to give him a
quick death, while the vultures would provide him a tomb. But Pierre was
not killed, though to his grave--unprepared as yet--he would bear an
arm which should never be lifted higher than