be fulfilled, let him be lifted up, for then perchance the
ghosts will depart from me and I shall win peace and sleep. Also, thus
alone can you hold him safe and yet shed no blood."

"Be it so," said the prince. "When we plotted together of the death of
the king, and as your price, Hokosa, you bargained for the girl whom I
had chosen to wife, did I not warn you that this witch of many spells,
who holds both our hearts in her little hands, should yet hound you to
death and mock you while you perished by an end of shame? What did I
tell you, Hokosa?"

Now when he heard his fate, Hokosa bowed his head and trembled a little.
Then he lifted it, and exclaimed in a clear voice:--

"It is true, Prince, but I will add to your words. She shall bring
_both_ of us to death. For me, I am honoured indeed in that there has
been allotted to me that same end which my Master chose. To that cross
let my sins be fastened and with them my body."

Now the moon sank, but in the darkness men were found who dared to climb
the tree, taking with them strips of raw hide. They reached the top of
it, four of them, and seating themselves upon the arms of the cross,
they let down a rope, the noose of which was placed about the body of
Hokosa. As it tightened upon him, he turned his calm and dreadful eyes
on to the eyes of Noma and said to her:--

"Woman, I do not reproach you; but I lay this fate upon you, that you
shall watch me die. Thereafter, let God deal with you as He may choose."

Now, when she heard these words Noma shrieked aloud, for of a sudden she
felt that the power of the will of Hokosa, from which she had been freed
by him, had once more fallen upon her, and that come what might she was
doomed to obey his last commands.

Little by little the soldiers drew him up and in the darkness they bound
him fast there upon the lofty cross. Then they descended and left him,
and would have led Noma with them from the tree. But this they could
not do, for always she broke from them screaming, and fled back to its
shadow.

Then, seeing that she was bewitched, Hafela commanded that they should
bind a cloth about her mouth and leave her there till her senses
returned to her in the sunlight--for none of them dared to stop with
her in the shadow of that tree, since the odours of it were poisonous to
man. Also they believed the place to be haunted by evil spirits.

CHAPTER XXII

THE VICTORY OF THE CROSS

The sun rose suddenly over the edge