"I see!" he said to himself. "It is not want of understanding that is in the way now! A thing cannot look hateful and reasonable at the same moment! This may be just the sort of thing Jesus meant! Even if I be in the right, I have a right to yield my right--and to HIM I will yield it. That was why Ian turned his face to the wall: he wanted me to discover that here was my opportunity! How but in the name of Jesus Christ could he have dared tell me to forgive Ruadh's death by sending his head to his murderer! It has to be done! I've got to do it! Here is my chance of turning the other cheek and being hurt again! What can come of it is no business of mine! To return evil is just to do a fresh evil! It MAY make the man ashamed of himself! It cannot hurt the stag; it only hurts my pride, and I owe my pride nothing! Why should not the fellow have what satisfaction he may--something to show for his shot! He shall have the head." Thereupon rushed into his heart the joy of giving up, of deliverance from self; and pity, to leaven his contempt, awoke for Sercombe. No sooner had he yielded his pride, than he felt it possible to love the man--not for anything he was, but for what he might and must be. "God let the man kill the stag," he said; "I will let him have the head." Again and yet again swelled afresh the tide of wrath and unwillingness, making him feel as if he could not carry out his resolve; but all the time he knew the thing was as good as done--absolutely determined, so that nothing could turn it aside. "To yield where one may, is the prerogative of liberty!" he said to himself. "God only can give; who would be his child must yield! Abroad in the fields of air, as Paul and the love of God make me hope, what will the wind-battling Ruadh care for his old head! Would he not say, 'Let the man have it; my hour was come, or the Some One would not have let him kill me!'?" Thus argued the chief while the darkness endured--and as soon as the morning began to break, rose, took spade and pick and great knife, and went where Hector and Rob were watching the slain. It was bitterly cold. The burn crept silent under a continuous bridge of ice. The grass-blades were crisp with frost. The ground was so hard it met iron like iron.