The
devils of confusion were returned forever. But there had been one
glimpse of the god. And it was as the Idiot had said when he saw with
the eyes of that god: no more blood was shed. The garrison of this fort
held it unmolested. The besiegers knew not that two men only stayed
within the walls; and because the chief begged to be taken south to die,
they left the place surrounded by its moats of ice and its trenches of
famine; and they came not back.
But other foes more deadly than the angry heathen came, and they were
called Hunger and Loneliness. The one destroyeth the body and the other
the brain. But Grah was not lonely, nor did he hunger. He blew his
bubbles, and muttered of a wind whereon a useless thing--a film of water,
a butterfly, or a fool--might ride beyond the reach of spirit, or man,
or heathen. His flesh remained the same, and grew not less; but that of
Pierre wasted, and his eye grew darker with suffering. For man is only
man, and hunger is a cruel thing. To give one's food to feed a fool, and
to search the silent plains in vain for any living thing to kill, is a
matter for angels to do and bear, and not mere mortals.
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