upon the march.

As one man, the village swept through the forest toward the rising
ground that was but a few bowshots away. The young men bounded ahead to
make preparation; but the approved warriors and the old men went more
sedately, and with them walked Diccon and I, as steady of step as they.
The women and children for the most part brought up the rear, though
a few impatient hags ran past us, calling the men tortoises who would
never reach the goal. One of these women bore a great burning torch, the
flame and smoke streaming over her shoulder as she ran. Others carried
pieces of bark heaped with the slivers of pine of which every wigwam has
store.

The sun was yet to rise when we reached a hollow amongst the low red
hills. Above us were the three long houses in which they keep the image
of Okee and the mummies of their kings. These temples faced the crimson
east, and the mist was yet about them. Hideous priests, painted over
with strange devices, the stuffed skins of snakes knotted about their
heads, in their hands great rattles which they shook vehemently, rushed
through the doors and down the bank to meet us, and began to dance
around us, contorting their bodies, throwing up their arms, and making a
hellish noise. Diccon stared at them, shrugged his shoulders, and with
a grunt of contempt sat down upon a fallen tree to watch the enemy's
manoeuvres.

The place was a natural amphitheatre, well fitted for a spectacle. Those
Indians who could not crowd into the narrow level spread themselves over
the rising ground, and looked down with fierce laughter upon the driving
of the stakes which the young men brought. The women and children
scattered into the woods beyond the cleft between the hills, and
returned bearing great armfuls of dry branches. The hollow rang to the
exultation of the playgoers. Taunting laughter, cries of savage triumph,
the shaking of the rattles, and the furious beating of two great drums
combined to make a clamor deafening to stupor. And above the hollow was
the angry reddening of the heavens, and the white mist curling up like
smoke.

I sat down beside Diccon on the log. Beneath it there were growing
tufts of a pale blue, slender-stemmed flower. I plucked a handful of the
blossoms, and thought how blue they would look against the whiteness of
her hand; then dropped them in a sudden shame that in that hour I was so
little steadfast to things which were not of earth. I did not speak to
Diccon