and they only, went with him in mocking company; the good having gone
first to plead where evil is a debtor and hath a prison. And the woman
came and stood beside Trafford, and whispered, "At first--and at the
last--he was kind."

But he urged her gently from the room: "Go away," he said; "go away. We
cannot judge him. Leave me alone with him."

They buried him upon the hill-side, far from the mounds where the Mighty
Men waited for their summons to go forth and be the lords of the North
again. At night they buried him when the moon was at its full; and he
had the fragrant pines for his bed, and the warm darkness to cover him;
and though he is to those others resting there a heathen and an alien,
it may be that he sleeps peacefully.

When Trafford questioned Hester Orval more deeply of her life there, the
unearthly look quickened in her eyes, and she said: "Oh, nothing, nothing
is real here, but suffering; perhaps it is all a dream, but it has
changed me, changed me. To hear the tread of the flying herds, to see no
being save him, the Scarlet Hunter, to hear the voices calling in the
night! . . . Hush! There, do you not hear them? It is midnight--
listen!"

He listened, and Pierre and Shon McGann looked at each other
apprehensively, while Shon's fingers felt hurriedly along the beads of a
rosary which he did not hold. Yes, they heard it, a deep sonorous sound:
"Is the daybreak come?" "It is still the night," came the reply as of
one clear voice. And then there floated through the hills more softly:
"We sleep--we sleep!" And the sounds echoed through the valley--"Sleep
--sleep!"