who stood so calm, so quiet, the massive
white-locked head still turned a little in that curious listening
attitude, beside whom, close drawn now, was that white-clad girlish
form, whose eyes were lowered, whose sweet face seemed to hold a heaven
of pity and infinite compassion, upon whose lips there was a smile of
divine tenderness, drew that piteous mockery of the image of a man,
whose every movement appeared one of agony beyond human power to
endure--and the agony found echo in the watchers' souls, and a low,
muffled groan as of men in pain and hurt, ran tremulously along the
line.

Still nearer to the Patriarch drew the Flopper. More heart-rending was
his every movement, for with his quickened pace he sought to move
without the aid of the only member that was as other men's, his left
hand and arm that, in pleading, yearning supplication, was stretched out
before him to the Patriarch.

The extreme ends of the long line of watchers curled a little inward,
almost imperceptibly, a half step taken without volition. The crippled
boy, swaying upon his crutch, his lips parted, trembling in every limb,
edged forward hesitantly, fearfully, now a foot, now another, now the
bare space of a single inch. And now down the entire length of the line
from end to end that wavering, rocking movement in swaying, pregnant
unison grew stronger--men knew not what they did--it seemed the very air
they breathed must smother them--and, in that dull, weird, lingering
note, rose again the sound of moaning that seemed to beat in consonance
with the distant mournful rhythm of the endless beat of surf on shore.

Women clutched at their breasts now; men's knuckles went white beneath
the tight-drawn skin; the children drew behind their mothers' skirts
and, terror-stricken, cried aloud. Surcharged, on the edge, the bare and
ragged edge of frenzy now was every man and woman in the crowd. It was a
sight, a spectacle that racked them in every fibre of their beings, that
stirred them to pity, to hope, to fear, until the awful misery of this
blighted and crawling thing was their own in its every twitch of
agony--that struck them with a terror, the greater because it was
indefinable, a prescience, a reaching out beyond human realm, the
invoking of a supernal power--the thought of which very power, once
loosed, chilled them with panic-dread.

Yet still they watched--it was beyond their power to turn their
eyes--enthralled, a moaning, swaying, rocking mo