his shoulder. When he waked
from the crashing gloom which succeeded the fall, he was in the presence
of a being whose appearance was awesome and massive--an outlawed god:
whose hair and beard were white, whose eye was piercing, absorbing,
painful, in the long perspective of its woe. This being sat with his
great hand clasped to the side of his head. The beginning of his look
was the village, and--though the vision seemed infinite--the village was
the end of it too. Pierre, looking through the doorway beside which he
lay, drew in his breath sharply, for it seemed at first as if The Man
was an unnatural fancy, and not a thing. Behind The Man was The Stone,
which was not more motionless nor more full of age than this its
comrade. Indeed, The Stone seemed more a thing of life as it poised
above the hill: The Man was sculptured rock. His white hair was
chiselled on his broad brow, his face was a solemn pathos petrified, his
lips were curled with an iron contempt, an incalculable anger.

The sun went down, and darkness gathered about The Man. Pierre reached
out his hand, and drank the water and ate the coarse bread that had been
put near him. He guessed that trees or protruding ledges had broken his
fall, and that he had been rescued and brought here. As he lay thinking,
The Man entered the doorway, stooping much to do so. With flints
he lighted a wick which hung from a wooden bowl of bear's oil; then
kneeling, held it above his head, and looked at Pierre. And Pierre, who
had never feared anyone, shrank from the look in The Man's eyes. But
when the other saw that Pierre was awake, a distant kindness came upon
his face, and he nodded gravely; but he did not speak. Presently a great
tremor as of pain shook all his limbs, and he set the candle on the
ground, and with his stalwart hands arranged afresh the bandages about
Pierre's injured arm and leg. Pierre spoke at last.

"You are The Man"? he said. The other bowed his head.

"You saved me from those devils in the valley?" A look of impregnable
hardness came into The Man's face, but he pressed Pierre's hand for
answer; and though the pressure was meant to be gentle, Pierre winced
painfully. The candle spluttered, and the hut filled with a sickly
smoke. The Man brought some bear skins and covered the sufferer, for,
the season being autumn, the night was cold. Pierre, who had thus spent
his first sane and conscious hour in many days, fell asleep. What time
it was when he waked h