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 I will 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 I will 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 I seek 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.
"I sleep. Whither shall I go? It is the true sleep--test me."
"Pass to the house of the white man, my rival. Are you with him?"
"I am with him."
"What does he?"
"He lies in slumber on his bed, and in his slumber he mutters the name of a woman, and tells her that he loves her, but that duty is more than love. Oh! call me back I cannot stay; a Presence guards him, and thrusts me thence."
"Return," said Hokosa starting. "Pass through the earth beneath you and tell me what you see."
"I see the body of the king; but were it not for his royal ornaments none would know him now."
"Return," said Hokosa, "and let the eyes of your spirit be open. Look around you and tell me what you see."
"I see the shadows of the dead," she answered; "they stand about you, gazing at you with angry eyes; but when they come near you, something drives them back, and I cannot understand what it is they say."
"Is the ghost of Umsuka among them?"
"It is among them."
"Bid him prophesy the future to me."
"I have bidden him, but he does not answer. If you would hear him speak, it must be through the lips of my body; and first my body must be emptied of my ghost, that his may find a place therein."
"Say, can his spirit be compelled?"
