My enemies were afraid to show themselves.

I was confronted merely with some unfortunates who have never done me the least harm." After a brief pause during which he seemed to be occupied in trying to read the thoughts in the dark countenance of the old man, Elias replied: "I've come to make a proposition to you.

Having sought in vain for some survivor of the family that caused the misfortunes of mine, I've decided to leave the province where I live and move toward the North among the independent pagan tribes.

Don't you want to abandon the life you have entered upon and come with me?
I will be your son, since you have lost your own; I have no family, and in you will find a father." The old man shook his, head in negation, saying, "When one at my age makes a desperate resolution, it's because there is no other recourse.

A man who, like myself, has spent his youth and his mature years toiling for the future of himself and his sons; a man who has been submissive to every wish of his superiors, who has conscientiously performed difficult tasks, enduring all that he might live in peace and quiet--when that man, whose blood time has chilled, renounces all his past and foregoes all his future, even on the very brink of the grave, it is because he has with mature judgment decided that peace does not exist and that it is not the highest good.