Christ shall break the hammer of the false god Thor."




III

THE SHADOW OF THE THUNDER-OAK


Withered leaves still clung to the branches of the oak: torn and
faded banners of the departed summer. The bright crimson of autumn
had long since disappeared, bleached away by the storms and the
cold. But to-night these tattered remnants of glory were red
again: ancient blood-stains against the dark-blue sky. For an
immense fire had been kindled in front of the tree. Tongues of
ruddy flame, fountains of ruby sparks, ascended through the
spreading limbs and flung a fierce illumination upward and around.
The pale, pure moonlight that bathed the surrounding forests was
quenched and eclipsed here. Not a beam of it sifted downward
through the branches of the oak. It stood like a pillar of cloud
between the still light of heaven and the crackling, flashing fire
of earth.

But the fire itself was invisible to Winfried and his companions.
A great throng of people were gathered around it in a half-circle,
their backs to the open glade, their faces towards the oak. Seen
against that glowing background, it was but the silhouette of a
crowd, vague, black, formless, mysterious.