The cries, too, not alone of the broken bodies, but--far
worse--of beaten, broken souls. And as the ghastly chorus rose and fell,
there came also the faces of the lost and unhappy creatures to whom they
belonged, and, against that curtain of pale grey light, he saw float
past him in the air, an array of white and piteous human countenances
that seemed to beckon and gibber at him as though he were already one of
themselves.
Slowly, too, as the voices rose, and the pallid crew sailed past, that
giant form of grey descended from the sky and approached the room that
contained the worshippers and their prisoner. Hands rose and sank about
him in the darkness, and he felt that he was being draped in other
garments than his own; a circlet of ice seemed to run about his head,
while round the waist, enclosing the fastened arms, he felt a girdle
tightly drawn. At last, about his very throat, there ran a soft and
silken touch which, better than if there had been full light, and a
mirror held to his face, he understood to be the cord of sacrifice--and
of death.
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