o the old measured chant, regular
as the tramp of marching feet, which carried through all the tumult of
sound around him. His heart beat hard, his hands clenched, but he flung
back his head with eyes which glittered in the firelight. Those nearest
looked on him in amazement, ready to scorn. Then they held silent, and
listened. Others drew closer, to see what might be going on. More came,
and more. Women left men's knees and joined the little crowd, smiling,
then with parted lips of wonder. Nicanor neither saw nor heard them. For
the first time in all his life he was carried beyond himself; in a
physical ecstasy he spoke out that which clamored at his lips, caring
nothing for his audience, unconscious of them utterly. And because that
is the one thing which will grip men's minds and compel them, he held
them spellbound, in spite of themselves,--until, abruptly, in a flash,
he became conscious of himself, seeing himself, hearing himself. That
moment he lost his hold of them. And he knew it, and stopped short. And
for an instant there was silence.

Then a woman drew a long breath which was like a sigh, and a man
muttered something into his beard. The spell snapped; and like a flood
let loose their talk leaped at him. They shouted, "More!" They would
know who he was, and whence he came, and he must finish the tale for
them. But Nicanor shook his head, dumbly, with a new and strange emotion
surging through him. He was frightened at himself, at his feeling, at
what he had done. And back of his fear lay something deeper, something
which he could not name,--half exultation, half truest awe, as though he
stood in a presence mightier than he and knew himself for but the tool
with which the work was wrought.

There came a woman, very wonderful, and hot as flame, and put into his
hand a broad piece of silver, looking into his eyes. A man with a broken
nose thrust a copper coin into his palm; others followed. For a moment
he stood staring at the fire-lit faces around him like one foolish or in
a trance, with his own face quite white. That he might receive money for
his soul had never entered his head. Then he broke away from them all
and ran--ran as though for his life--back to the house of Tobias, and
clambered through the low window and flung himself upon the bed,
laughing and sobbing and shaking, and clutching his coins in sweating
hands.

For he had entered into his heritage at last, and the Future had become
the Present.