swered, or seemed to answer, and my voice, too,
sounded strange and hollow:--

"'Hail, Dead One, who sittest like a vulture on a rock! I do this on the
Ghost Mountain. I come to seek thy bones and bear them to thy mother for
burial.'

"'Many and many a year have I sat aloft, Galazi,' answered the voice,
'watching the ghost-wolves leap and leap to drag me down, till the rock
grew smooth beneath the wearing of their feet. So I sat seven days and
nights, being yet alive, the hungry wolves below, and hunger gnawing at
my heart. So I have sat many and many a year, being dead in the heart
of the old stone Witch, watching the moon and the sun and the stars,
hearkening to the howls of the ghost-wolves as they ravened beneath me,
and learning the wisdom of the old witch who sits above in everlasting
stone. Yet my mother was young and fair when I trod the haunted forest
and climbed the knees of stone. How seems she now, Galazi?'

"'She is white and wrinkled and very aged,' I answered. 'They call
her mad, yet at her bidding I came to seek thee, Dead One, bearing the
Watcher that was thy father's and shall be mine.'

"'It shall be thine, Galazi,' said the voice, 'for thou alone hast dared
the ghosts to give me sleep and burial. Hearken, thine also shall be the
wisdom of the old witch who sits aloft forever, frozen into everlasting
stone--thine and one other's. These are not wolves that thou hast seen,
that is no wolf which thou hast slain; nay, they are ghosts--evil ghosts
of men who lived in ages gone, and who must now live till they be slain
by men. And knowest thou how they lived, Galazi, and what was the food
they ate? When the light comes again, Galazi, climb to the breasts of
the stone Witch, and look in the cleft which is between her breasts.
There shalt thou see how these men lived. And now this doom is on them:
they must wander gaunt and hungry in the shape of wolves, haunting that
Ghost Mountain where they once fed, till they are led forth to die at
the hands of men. Because of their devouring hunger they have leapt from
year to year, striving to reach my bones; and he whom thou hast slain
was the king of them, and she at his side was their queen.

"'Now, Galazi the Wolf, this is the wisdom that I give thee: thou shalt
be king of the ghost-wolves, thou and another, whom a lion shall bring
thee. Gird the black skin upon thy shoulders, and the wolves shall
follow thee; all the three hundred and sixty and three of them t