had, they still believed we were gods it
wasn’t for me to undeceive them.

“‘A god can do anything,’ says I. ‘If
the King is fond of a girl he’ll not let her
die.’ ‘She’ll have to,’ said Billy Fish.
‘There are all sorts of gods and devils in
these mountains, and now and again a girl
marries one of them and isn’t seen any more.
Besides, you two know the Mark cut in the
stone. Only the gods know that. We
thought you were men till you showed the
sign of the Master.’

“‘I wished then that we had explained
about the loss of the genuine secrets of a
Master-Mason at the first go-off; but I said
nothing. All that night there was a blowing
of horns in a little dark temple half-way
down the hill, and I heard a girl crying fit
to die. One of the priests told us that she
was being prepared to marry the King.

“‘I’ll have no nonsense of that kind,’
says Dan. ‘I don’t want to interfere with
your customs, but I’ll take my own wife.
‘The girl’s a little bit afraid,’ says the priest.
‘She thinks she’s going to die, and they are
a-heartening of her up down in the temple.’