for the burning.'

"The Great Slave said he would not do it, not though he should die a
hundred deaths. Then the king said that it was the woman's right to
choose who should start the fire, and he had given his word, which
should not be broken.

"When the Great Slave heard this he was wild for a little, and then he
guessed altogether what was in the girl's mind. Was not this the true
thing in her, the very truest? Mais oui! That was what she wished--to
die by his hand rather than by any other; and something troubled his
breast, and a cloud came in his eyes, so that for a moment he could
not see. He looked at the girl, so serious, eye to eye. Perhaps she
understood. So, after a time, he got calm as the farthest light in the
sky, his face shining among them all with a look none could read. He sat
down, and wrote upon pieces of bark with a spear-point--those bits of
bark I have seen also at Fort O'Glory. He pierced them through with
dried strings of the slippery-elm tree, and with the king's consent gave
them to the Company's man, who had become one of the people, telling
him, if ever he was free, or could send them to the Company, he must do
so. The man promised, and shame came upon him that he had let the other
suffer alone; and he said he was willing to fight and die if the Great
Slave gave the word. But he would not; and he urged that it was right
for the man to save his life. For himself, no. It could never be; and if
he must die, he must die.

"You see, a great man must always live alone and die alone, when there
are only such people about him. So, now that the letters were written,
he sat upon the ground and thought, looking often towards the girl, who
was placed apart, with guards near. The king sat thinking also. He could
not guess why the Great Slave should give the letters now, since he was
not yet to die, nor could the Company's man show a reason when the king
asked him. So the king waited, and told the guards to see that the Great
Slave did not kill himself.

"But the queen wanted the death of the girl, and was glad beyond telling
that the Slave must light the faggots. She was glad when she saw the
young braves bring a long sapling from the forest, and, digging a hole,
put it stoutly in the ground, and fetch wood, and heap it about.

"The Great Slave noted that the bark of the sapling had not been
stripped, and more than once he measured, with his eye, the space
between the stake and the shores of the Lak