And in this wise passed three days and nights; yet both in the
sleep-time and the time of waking did great multitudes cease not to
watch; so that many went hungry for sleep, as in truth did I. And
sometimes we saw those Youths with plainness; but other times they were
lost to our sight in the utter shadows of the Night Land. Yet, by the
telling of our instruments, and the sense of my hearing, there was no
awaredness among the Monsters, and the Forces of Evil, that any were
abroad from the Pyramid; so that a little hope came into our hearts that
yet there might be no tragedy
. And times, would they cease from their way, and sit about in circles
among the shadows and the grey moss-bushes, which grew hardly here or
there about. And we knew that they had food with them to eat; for this
could we see with plainness, as some odd, grim flare of light from the
infernal fires struck upon one or another strangely, and passed, and
left them in the darkness.
And who of you shall conceive what was in the hearts of the fathers, and
the mothers that bore the youths, and who never ceased away from the
Northward embrasures; but spied out in terror and in tears, and maybe
oft with so good glasses as did show them the very features and look
upon the face of son and son.
And the kin of the watchers brought to them food, and tended them, so
that they had no need to cease from their watching; and beds were made
in the embrasures, rough and resourceful, that they might sleep quickly
a little; yet be ever ready, if those cruel Monsters without made
discovery of those their children.
Thrice in those three days of journeying to the Northward, did the
Youths sleep, and we perceived that some kept a watch, and so knew that
there was a kind of order and leadership among them; also, they had each
his weapon upon his hip, and this gave to us a further plea to hope. A
nd concerning this same carrying of weapons, I can but set out here
that no healthful male or female in all the Mighty Pyramid but possessed
such a weapon, and was trained to it from childhood; so that a ripe and
extraordinary skill in the use thereof was common to most. Yet some
breaking of Rule had there been, that the Youths had each achieved to be
armed; for the weapons were stored in every tenth house of the cities,
in the care of the charging-masters.