"Take this, Alorcus!" he said, on descending. He handed the new chieftain a slender copper chain from which hung a disk-like case of the same metal. "This is the greatest inheritance from your father--the manumission which accompanied him at all times. There is not a warrior in Celtiberia who does not carry upon his person his poison so that he may die rather than become the slave of the conqueror. I prepared this for your father. I spent a whole moon extracting it from the wild apium, and one drop of it will kill like a lightning flash. If some day you fall vanquished, drink and die before your people behold their chieftain with a hand stricken off and serving the enemy as a slave." Alorcus slipped the chain over his head, concealing the heirloom in his breast. Then he returned to Actæon, beneath the oaks where the ancients of the tribe were grouped. The young men in the meadow, apprentices in the art of warfare, ran around the pyre with lighted torches. The flaming candlewood licked the resinous logs, and soon the smoke and flames began to enwrap the corpse. The warriors most famous for valor and strength advanced, making their horses caracole round about the fire. Waving their lances, they proclaimed with hoarse cries the deeds of the departed chief, the body of the tribe joining in the acclamation. They related the innumerable combats from which he had come forth victor; the audacious expeditions on which he had caught the enemy off their guard at night, burning their dwellings, and leading off interminable strings of captives; the flocks captured, for which there was barely pasture-ground in the territories belonging to the tribe; his colossal strength; the quickness with which he mastered the wildest colt; and the prudence which he demonstrated in all his counsels. "He covered the doors of our houses with the hands of our enemies," shouted a warrior, galloping like a phantom through the smoke of the funeral pyre. The multitude shouted with an intonation of lament. "Endovellicus! Endovellicus!" "All the tribes feared him, and his name was respected like that of a god!" The multitude repeated the name of the chief over and over, as if weeping. "With his hands of stone he would fell the bull in full career, and smite off the head of the enemy with a stroke of his sword!" "Endovellicus! Endovellicus!" Thus proceeded the last rites to the chieftain. The flames from the bier rose straight into the heavens clouding the blue sky with its pall of smoke, and the mourners tireless in heralding the deeds of their leader, passed and repassed like black demons crowned with sparks, making their horses leap over the flaming wood. The funeral pyre fell overwhelming the remains of Endovellicus with ashes and charring logs, while around the embers of the fire commenced the combat in honor of the dead.