“I know,” the older woman said.

“He was the piper who taught me a song of death and called it love,” the Friendship Seller said.

“I knew him too,” said the little girl. “He used to pass me where I begged, and look upon my twisted legs and laugh. I used to feel so bad when he would look and smirk in satisfaction. And every time he passed he left me crying.”

They ceased their talking and looked up at the wall. The great machine hung heaviness into their souls, the giant timbers creaked in the ordeal they were asked to undergo. The women shuddered when they viewed the suffering form that lay among the cables and the gears.

Grief owned the day.

In turn the three stood up and stared upon the dying Singer, high and lifted up.

“My joy, my health,” said the little girl.

“My life,” said the Friendship Seller.

The night stood dumb. The burdened mother wept. “The Ancient Star-Song lost. The World Hater won. I wish I might have died instead of you, my son, my son, my son.”

XX

A child who cries at the coffin of his father is only mature when he has lived long enough to cry at the coffin of his son.

Never was a boy crucified, but that the weeping Father always found the nail-prints in his own hands.

The dying went slowly. The great timbers were weathered by the grimness of their task. A single, great gear pivoted upon an axis, that culminated in a windlass upon which wound a cable. Below in an ever tightening arc an armature was turning. A group of smaller cams and gears seemed each to play their part in keeping tension on the heavy ropes.

The beams and cables ended where a set of chains fastened their steel bands to the hands and feet of the Singer. Each time the great windlass moved a fraction of an inch, the tension grew upon the ropes and left the Singer caught in agony that grew increasingly unbearable.

Suspended from a rough-hewn crane there hung a hopper. And everyone who lived within the ancient city filed silently along the wall and dropped a stone within the great receptacle. The growing weight increased the stress. The lines groaned upon the metal bands.

The Keepers of the Ancient Ways began the execution by laying on the stones of offense first. It was their holy stones of accusation that set the great machine in motion. In fidelity to the truth, they bowed their knees and looked to heaven and chanted in the file of death.

Oh God of ancient days,

Thou Keeper of the Ancient Ways,

Our fathers’ God, we praise!

Over and over ran the litany of death. The weight of accusation grew with each successive stone.

The Singer seemed small among the heavy beams of wood. The gray of the day settled close around the spiraled towers and by the afternoon, the fog removed the upper walls from sight. Still it settled downward. At last the great machine itself was shrouded by the mist that came to cool the fever in the dying Singer.