It may have been that the abhorrence
and extinction of evil was roughly typified, or that it was understood
that the death of the victim would, as if he were a scapegoat, cleanse
the worshippers of the sins with which he was thus loaded. It is idle to
grope where all is, and must be, dark; all that can be asserted with
any certainty is that the preliminary eulogy, a more modern practice,
was intended to enhance the value of the offering which they were about
to make to the Gods.
The warriors now resumed their burden, and a procession was formed
towards the pyre, on which the litter-bearers, mounting by an inclined
plane, placed the doomed youth. Judith ascended the huge boulder, which
was some eight feet higher than the pyre at its foot. The chief and
people grouped themselves round its base. The priests stood ready to
apply the torch when the sorceress gave the signal, and the distant
watchman on the Guct waited in his turn for the first flash of flame to
kindle the beacon which was to set the assailing forces in motion.
Judith turned to the expectant crowd: her glance was searching, in her
eye was an ineffable look of scorn.
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