It was midnight, and Hokosa with his wife stood in the burying-ground of the kings of the Amasuka.Before Owen came upon his mission it was death to visit this spot except upon the occasion of the laying to rest of one of the royal blood, or to offer the annual sacrifice to the spirits of the dead.Even beneath the bright moon that shone upon it the place seemed terrible.Here in the bosom of the hills was an amphitheatre, surrounded by walls of rock varying from five hundred to a thousand feet in height.In this amphitheatre grew great mimosa thorns, and above them towered pillars of granite, set there not by the hand of man but by nature.It would seem that the Amasuka, led by some fine instinct, had chosen these columns as fitting memorials of their kings, at the least a departed monarch lay at the foot of each of them.
The smallest of these unhewn obelisks--it was about fifty feet high--marked the resting-place of Umsuka; and deep into its granite Owen with his own hand had cut the dead king's name and date of death, surmounting his inscription with a symbol of the cross.
Towards this pillar Hokosa made his way through the wet grass, followed by Noma his wife.Presently they were there, standing one upon each side of a little mound of earth more like an ant-heap than a grave; for, after the custom of his people, Umsuka had been buried sitting.At the foot of each of the pillars rose a heap of similar shape, but many times as large.The kings who slept there were accompanied to their resting-places by numbers of their wives and servants, who had been slain in solemn sacrifice that they might attend their Lord whithersoever he should wander.
"What is that you desire and would do?" asked Noma, in a hushed voice.
Bold as she was, the place and the occasion awed her.
"I desire wisdom from the dead!" he answered."Have I not already told you, and can I not win it with your help?""What dead, husband?"
"Umsuka the king.Ah! I served him living, and at the last he drove me away from his side.Now he shall serve me, and out of the nowhere Iwill call him back to mine."
"Will not this symbol defeat you?" and Noma pointed at the cross hewn in the granite.
At her words a sudden gust of rage seemed to shake the wizard.His still eyes flashed, his lips turned livid, and with them he spat upon the cross.
"It has no power," he said."May it be accursed, and may he who believes therein hang thereon! It has no power; but even if it had, according to the tale of that white liar, such things as I would do have been done beneath its shadow.By it the dead have been raised--ay! dead kings have been dragged from death and forced to tell the secrets of the grave.Come, come, let us to the work.""What must I do, husband?"
"You shall sit you there, even as a corpse sits, and there for a little while you shall die--yes, your spirit shall leave you--and Iwill fill your body with the soul of him who sleeps beneath;; and through your lips I will learn his wisdom, to whom all things are known.""It is terrible! I am afraid!" she said."Cannot this be done otherwise?""It cannot," he answered."The spirits of the dead have no shape or form; they are invisible, and can speak only in dreams or through the lips of one in whose pulses life still lingers, though soul and body be already parted.Have no fear.Ere his ghost leaves you it shall recall your own, which till the corpse is cold stays ever close at hand.I did not think to find a coward in you, Noma.""I am not a coward, as you know well," she answered passionately, "for many a deed of magic have we dared together in past days.But this is fearsome, to die that my body may become the home of the ghost of a dead man, who perchance, having entered it, will abide there, leaving my spirit houseless, or perchance will shut up the doors of my heart in such fashion that they never can be opened.Can it not be done by trance as aforetime? Tell me, Hokosa, how often have you thus talked with the dead?""Thrice, Noma."
"And what chanced to them through whom you talked?""Two lived and took no harm; the third died, because the awakening medicine lacked power.Yet fear nothing; that which I have with me is of the best.Noma, you know my plight: I must win wisdom or fall for ever, and you alone can help me; for under this new rule, I can no longer buy a youth or maid for purposes of witchcraft, even if one could be found fitted to the work.Choose then: shall we go back or forward? Here trance will not help us; for those entranced cannot read the future, nor can they hold communion with the dead, being but asleep.Choose, Noma.""I have chosen," she answered."Never yet have I turned my back upon a venture, nor will I do so now.Come life, come death, I will submit me to your wish, though there are few women who would dare as much for any man.Nor in truth do I do this for you, Hokosa; I do it because Iseek power, and thus only can we win it who are fallen.Also I love all things strange, and desire to commune with the dead and to know that, if for some few minutes only, at least my woman's breast has held the spirit of a king.Yet, I warn you, make no fault in your magic; for should I die beneath it, then I, who desire to live on and to be great, will haunt you and be avenged upon you!""Oh! Noma," he said, "if I believed that there was any danger for you, should I ask you to suffer this thing?--I, who love you more even than you love power, more than my life, more than anything that is or ever can be.""I know it, and it is to that I trust," the woman answered."Now begin, before my courage leaves me.""Good," he said."Seat yourself there upon the mound, resting your head against the stone."She obeyed; and taking thongs of hide which he had made ready, Hokosa bound her wrists and ankles, as these people bind the wrists and ankles of corpses.Then he knelt before her, staring into her face with his solemn eyes and muttering: "Obey and sleep."Presently her limbs relaxed, and her head fell forward.
"Do you sleep?" he asked.
