At daybreak on the day that had been decided upon, the farewell ceremonies began. Hymns were sung and a feast was held, prayers and sacrifices were made; there were all sorts of farewell wishes and loving hopes and instructions. Nothing, however, could make it anything but a very solemn occasion. The young people must go beyond the mountains, for on this side they could have no hope of finding any place to live. No one knew what awaited them. But whatever happened, no one would have dreamed of breaking the promise made to the gods. A pledge is a pledge, and not the shrewdest cheat can deceive the gods, for they know men’s hearts.
[Illustration: All the young voices took up the song]
Flam’na, the wife of young Mauros the maker of swords, looked back just once as they lost sight of the village. Then she led in the singing of the last of the farewell songs. She had a beautiful voice, clear and strong and sweet; her husband’s deeper tones joined hers, and then all the young voices took up the song as streams run into a river. The fathers and mothers heard the wild music of their singing floating down from the mountain forest as they climbed the narrow trail. They were following a path which the young men knew from their hunting expeditions, which led around the shoulder of the mountain to a pass through which they could cross and go down the other side. Now that they were fairly on their way, the care of the young animals they were driving, all of them full of life and not at all used to keeping together in strange woods, took up most of the attention of the whole party.
On the western slopes, as far as the hunters had ever gone, there were no people living in villages—only scattered woodcutters and hunters, and here and there a poor ignorant family in a little clearing. If they went far enough down to reach the upper valleys of streams or rivers, they might find just the sort of place they wanted for their new home. Others must have done this in the past, or there would never have been the custom of the sacred spring, for the emigrant parties would have been all killed off or starved to death. The young men said that what others had done they could do, and they went valiantly on, chanting a marching song.