Occasionally this journey resulted in an accident, as one
of them would fall from the wall and be dashed to pieces, although it was
noticed that the unfortunate was generally a person who, although guilty
of no actual crime, chanced to be out of favour with the other priests and
priestesses. After the circuit of the wall had been accomplished, with or
without accidents, the dwarfs feasted round a fire, drinking some spirit
that threw them into a sleep in which wonderful visions appeared to them.
Such was their only entertainment, if so it could be called, since
doubtless the ceremony was of a religious character. For the rest they
seldom if ever left the holy place, which was known as "Within the Wall,"
most of them never doing so in the course of a long life.
Beyond the burial of the dead they did no work, as their food was brought
to them daily by outside people, who were called "the slaves of the Wall."
Their only method of conversation was by signs, and they seemed to desire
no other. Indeed, if, as occasionally happened, a child was born to any of
them who could hear or speak like other human beings, it was either given
over to the other dwarfs, or if the discovery was not made until it was
old enough to observe, it was sacrificed by being bound to the trunk of
the tribal tree "lest it should tell the secret of the Tree.
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