They
ran the boat into a cove, and set foot to land; and the man came
heavily behind among the rocks in the deepness of the bracken, but
the Poor Thing went before him like a smoke in the light of the
moon. So they came to the dead-cairn, and they laid their ears to
the stones; and the dead complained withinsides like a swarm of
bees: "Time was that marrow was in our bones, and strength in our
sinews; and the thoughts of our head were clothed upon with acts
and the words of men. But now are we broken in sunder, and the
bonds of our bones are loosed, and our thoughts lie in the dust."
Then said the Poor Thing: "Charge them that they give you the
virtue they withheld".
And the man said: "Bones of my fathers, greeting! for I am sprung
of your loins. And now, behold, I break open the piled stones of
your cairn, and I let in the noon between your ribs. Count it well
done, for it was to be; and give me what I come seeking in the name
of blood and in the name of God."
And the spirits of the dead stirred in the cairn like ants; and
they spoke: "You have broken the roof of our cairn and let in the
noon between our ribs; and you have the strength of the still-
living. But what virtue have we? what power? or what jewel here in
the dust with us, that any living man should covet or receive it?
for we are less than nothing.
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