estion it.
Pierre stood and looked. Time and again he had been here, and had asked
the same question: Who had ever sat on those frozen benches and looked
down at the drama on that stage below? Who played the parts? Was it a
farce or a sacrifice? To him had been given the sorrow of imagination,
and he wondered and wondered. Or did they come still--those strange
people, whoever they were--and watch ghostly gladiators at their fatal
sport? If they came, when was it? Perhaps they were there now unseen. In
spite of himself he shuddered. Who was the keeper of the house?

Through his mind there ran--pregnant to him for the first tine--a
chanson of the Scarlet Hunter, the Red Patrol, who guarded the sleepers
in the Kimash Hills against the time they should awake and possess the
land once more: the friend of the lost, the lover of the vagabond, and
of all who had no home:

"Strangers come to the outer walls--
(Why do the sleepers stir?)
Strangers enter the Judgment House--
(Why do the sleepers sigh?)
Slow they rise in their judgment seats,
Sieve and measure the naked souls,
Then with a blessing return to sleep--
(Quiet the Judgment House.)
Lone and sick are the vagrant souls--
(When shall the world come home?)"

He reflected upon the words, and a feeling of awe came over him, for he
had been in the White Valley and had seen the Scarlet Hunter. But
there came at once also a sinister desire to play a game for this man's
life-work here. He knew that the other was ready for any wild move;
there was upon him the sense of failure and disgust; he was acted on
by the magic of the night, the terrible delight of the scene, and that
might be turned to advantage.

He said: "Am I not right? There is something in the world greater than
the creeds and the book of the Mass. To be free and to enjoy, that is
the thing. Never before have you felt what you feel here now. And I will
show you more. I will teach you how to know, I will lead you through all
the north and make you to understand the big things of life. Then, when
you have known, you can return if you will. But now--see: I will tell
you what I will do. Here on this great platform we will play a game of
cards. There is a man whose life I can ruin. If you win I promise to
leave him safe; and to go out of the far north for ever, to go back to
Quebec"--he had a kind of gaming fever in his veins. "If I wi