And they bore the Youths to their Mothers and to their Fathers; and the
Father of each made thanks to the men that they had saved the soul of
his son; but the women were silent. Yet, neither to the Father nor to
the Mother, was ever made known the name of the slayers; for this might
not be; as all shall see with a little thought.
And some did remember that, in verity, all was due to the unwisdom of
those Youths, who had heeded not the Law and their life-teachings. Yet
had they paid to the uttermost, and passed outwards; and the account of
their Deeds was closed.
And all this while did great numbers spy toward the Road Where The
Silent Ones Walk, that they might watch that band of Youths afar in the
Night Land, who went forward amid those horrid dangers. Yet, when the
dead Youths had been brought in, many had ceased to look out for a time
and had turned to questioning, and some had made inspection that they
might know which had come back, and which lay out there where the Giants
had slain them, or went forward to more dreadful matters.
But who of those that were abroad, were slain, or still went onward, we
had but indifferent knowledge; though the men of the Ten-thousand knew
somewhat, having had speech with the wounded Youths, ere they slew them.
And, as may be thought, these men were sorely questioned by the Mothers
and the Fathers of those Youths that were not accounted of; yet I doubt
that few had much knowledge wherewith to console them.
Now there was presently, in the Garden of Silence, which was the
lowermost of all the Underground Fields, the Ending of those seventeen
hundred heroes, and of the Youths that they saved and slew. And the
Garden was a great country, and an hundred miles every way, and the roof
thereof was three great miles above, and shaped to a mighty dome; as it
had been that the Builders and Makers thereof did remember in their
spirits the visible sky of this our present age.
And the making of that Country was all set out in a single History of
seven thousand and seventy Volumes. And there were likewise seven
thousand and seventy years spent to the making of that Country; so that
there had unremembered generations lived and laboured and died, and seen
not the end of their labour. And Love had shaped it and hallowed it; so
that of all the wonders of the world, there has been none that shall
ever come anigh to that Country of Silence--an hundred miles every way
of Silence to the Dead.