“At last the carts started. Slowly they were driven from the town. Through a long night journey we travelled till we came to a stand. I heard the men come round, and release the pins that hold a cart steady, and when these were loosened, the heap of corpses was shot out upon the ground. “Once more upon the earth I lay with the dead around me, and I saw the carts making their slow journey returning to the town. The wheels sounded more and more distantly, till at last all was still. “And the sky changed from grey dusk to the flush of dawn, then a long streak of red, and I lay watching it. And in that dawn my companion and I, rose up from among the dead bodies, and took our way across the plain. “We exchanged no words; we had but the one thought between us--to leave the dead, to get away. “And directing our steps across the open desert, we walked silently, the sand muffling our footsteps as we went.” CHAPTER XV _But I hae dreamed a weary dream Beyond the land of Skye; I saw a dead man win a fight, And I think that man was I._ OLD BALLAD. The days passed happily for the children in their almost daily companionship of the old woman. They liked to work for her. They would clean the cottage, or wash the china, hanging all the cups again by their handles on the hooks of the dresser. And you may roam through pleasures and palaces and never, to my mind, happen upon a prettier decoration to the wall of a room, than cups thus suspended in a row. When Granny Gather-stick returned from her expedition to the neighbouring market-town, she would find all comfortably prepared. Her tea in making, the table spread, a fire of logs, with the cat purring before them, and two children glad of her return. After she had refreshed herself and was rested, she told them more stories of her dreams. One was called “The Story of the Greatest Sufferer,” and in nearly all her dreams kings and queens figured--she could give no reason why. “I thought I was reading once in a book the story of a king. The king worshipped many gods, but in his heart he longed to know who of all his gods was the greatest, and the worthiest of praise. Now it happened this king had a dream, and in his dream it was told him he should worship none but the highest, and that he who had suffered most was the highest, and the worthiest of praise. And it was further told him that on the morrow all those who had suffered would come before his throne, and when he who had suffered most should appear before the king, the stars would fall from heaven in a golden rain.