pped forward whose voice was yet clear and
loud; he passed a warm eulogy on the qualities of the captive, whom he
described in exaggerated phrases as a sage in council, and a hero in
battle, endowing him also with every domestic virtue which seemed in his
eyes worthy of enumeration. This discourse was followed by a warlike
song in honour of Thor and Odin, and it was during the course of this
hymn that it became clear from their rolling eyes and unsteady gait that
the old men were in a state of no ordinary excitement. All night they
had been feasting their deities, and the solemnity had involved deep
potations; now, as the rapid movements of a dance which accompanied the
inspiriting words sent the fumes into their heads, they appeared to be
beside themselves. The bystanders, however, attributing their frenzy to
religious fervour, and not unaccustomed to such manifestations, looked
on unmoved. The music ceased; and the song of triumph gave way to a
hideous scene over which it were painful to dwell. The drunken old men,
with incredible agility, whirled round the prostrate form of Jean. There
was no question now of eulogizing his virtues: he was accused, in
language which seemed devil-born, of every crime, every infamy, of which
the human race is capable; held up to scorn and ignominy, he was cursed
and execrated with a shower of blasphemy and obscenity; a by-stander,
contemplating his calm, clear face, the lips parted in prayer, gleaming
amidst the contorted features of the screaming miscreants, might have
believed him to be already passing, unscathed, through the terrors of
purgatory.

It is impossible at this day to fathom the mystery of this terrible
relic of some remote superstition. It may have been that the abhorrence
and extinction of evil was roughly typified, or that it was understood
that the death of the victim would, as if he were a scapegoat, cleanse
the worshippers of the sins with which he was thus loaded. It is idle to
grope where all is, and must be, dark; all that can be asserted with
any certainty is that the preliminary eulogy, a more modern practice,
was intended to enhance the value of the offering which they were about
to make to the Gods.

The warriors now resumed their burden, and a procession was formed
towards the pyre, on which the litter-bearers, mounting by an inclined
plane, placed the doomed youth. Judith ascended the huge boulder, which
was some eight feet higher than the pyre at its foot.