Caius did not think, or analyze his emotion.

No doubt the regular file of the men, suggesting discipline which has such terrible force for weal or woe, and their attitudes, suggesting motives and thoughts of which he could form not the faintest explanation, were the two elements which made the scene fearful to him.
O'Shea stopped a few paces from the nearest figure, and Caius stopped a few paces nearer the opening of the dune.
"Ye see these men ?" said O'Shea.
Caius did not answer.
O'Shea raised his voice: "I say before them what I have said, that if ye'll swear here before heaven, as a man of honour, that ye'll walk from here to the loighthouse on The Cloud--which ye shall find in the straight loine of the beach--without once turning yer head or looking behoind ye, neither man nor beast nor devil shall do ye any hurt, and yer properties shall be returned to ye when a cart can be got to take them.

Will ye swear ?" Caius made no answer.

He was looking intently.

As soon as the tones of O'Shea's voice were carried away by the bluster of the wind, as far as the human beings there were concerned there was perfect stillness; the surf and the wind might have been sweeping the dunes alone.
"And if I will not swear ?" asked Caius, in a voice that was loud enough to reach to the last man in the long single rank.
O'Shea stepped nearer him, and, as if in pretence of wiping his face with his gloved hand, he sent him a hissing whisper that gave a sudden change of friendliness and confidence to his voice, "Don't be a fool! swear it." "Are these men, or are they corpses ?" asked Caius.
The stillness of the forms before him became an almost unendurable spectacle.
He had no sooner spoken than O'Shea appealed to the men, shouting words in the queer guttural French.