Citico, who might hardly make feeble shift to sway a
reed, and yet with sharp sarcasms had stabbed him again and again to the
very heart.

"_Pihmtonheu_! Oh, _pihmtonheu_!" (He has the crooked mouth! Oh, he has
the crooked mouth!) Tscholens muttered between his set teeth as he
crossed the open space and paused before the western "holy cabin."

But for his rage, perhaps, but for his smarting wounds, Tscholens might
have labored with some deterrent sense of sacrilege. But no! With one
elastic bound he leaped upon the "holy white seat," whence he surmounted
the tier of places still behind and higher; then he lightly swung
himself down into the intervening space in front of the inner partition
formed by a red clay wall.

A momentary pause--a monition of caution. He looked back over his
shoulder at the pallid world without, visible across the barrier of
seats through the broad entrance of the loggia-like place. With the
reflection from the drifts on the ground and the tempered radiance of
the moon behind the tissues of cloud, the scene seemed more wan, more
illumined with ghastly light, because of the density of the gloom
wherein he stood. The conical-shaped winter tenements had each a thatch
of snow; the great circular council-house, with its whitened dome,
glimmered as stately as some marble rotunda, on its high mound, distinct
against the blurring blue shadow of the night and the gray clouds and
the bare boughs of the encompassing forest. No living creature was to be
seen, save the dog that had followed him, and that had paused to
investigate some real or fancied find beneath the snow,--a bone,
perhaps, flung out from the feastings of overnight; perhaps some little
animal, young or hurt, whelmed in the drift. Now the dog thrust down a
tense, inquiring muzzle, sniffing tentatively, cautiously, and again he
plied alternately his forefeet and his hindfeet, digging out the snow
from the quarry; then once more, with a motionless body and a straight,
quivering tail, he applied his sensitive nostrils to the examination.

Tscholens with gratification noted his absorption. This was indeed well.
The animal's persistent following further might have hampered his plans
and revealed his intrusion. The next moment, as the _illau_ turned to
his purpose, densest night seemed to have encompassed him. The shadows
cloaked all, save only the blank wall of clay and, down close to the
ground, an arched opening into the _sanctum sanctorum_,--