all assembled fell on their knees. The music gave out sharp plaintive notes which were answered by the voices of men and women in short, wailing, as it were inquiring, rhythm; this continued till the sun was on the point of disappearance, when music and voices together burst into a sad chant, seemingly of farewell; the kneeling people extending their hands seaward with an appealing gesture. One figure only was erect; on the projecting boulder, which is still so conspicuous a feature of the Rocque du Guet, stood the sorceress, her arms also outstretched, her figure, firm, erect, sharply outlined, such as Turner's mind conceived when he sketched the Last Man.
Father Austin contemplated the scene from a distance. By his side was his favourite convert, Jean Letocq.
"Strange!" he said, placing his hand on his companion's shoulder. "Your race are not sun-worshippers. Never, except on this day of the year, do they show this feeling; but who that saw them to-day would doubt that they are so! Is it that from old times their intense love of nature has led them to show in this way their sadness at its decay? or do they by mourning over the close of the sun's longest day symbolize their recognition of the inevitable end of the longest life of man? I cannot tell. But, blind as this worship is, it is better than that of the work of man's hands. By God's will your countrymen may be led from kneeling to the created to mount the ladder till they bend the knee only to the Creator. It may be well, too, that their chosen object of veneration is the only object in nature which dies but to rise again. Thus may they be led to the comprehension of the great truth of the resurrection. But Satan," he added with warmth, "must be wrestled with and cast down, specially when he takes the forms of temptation which he has assumed to-day: those of power and beauty. Prayer and fasting are sorely needed."
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