t would be wisdom on our part to kneel before the thing," said
Hugh calculatingly.

"I'll do anything you think best," she said reluctantly, kneeling for a
moment with him before the idol. Whereupon the chief and his attendants
shouted for joy and fell upon their much-used faces. The populace,
thronging about the temple, took up the cry, and all night long they
chanted praise to the living gods. The weird, ghastly figures flitted
from end to end of the mad village long after the chief and his party
had left the temple to the sole possession of the new divinities.

"I wonder if they expect us to sit up forever as sedately as that old
party over there," mused Hugh, after the savages had withdrawn, greatly
to the mystification of their guests. "We're evidently left here to make
the best of it. I fancy we are now supposed to be in business as real
gods with a steady job in the temple."

"I am beginning to think we have come to a terrible place, Hugh. How
fierce and wild these people are! What is to become of us?" asked she,
shivering as with a chill. "How horrible it would be if they brought us
here as a sacrifice to this beastly idol. Is there no way of escape?"

"Nonsense! We've queered this antiquated old fossil forever. Two real
live gods are worth ten thousand stone quarries like that. If you say
so, I'll have a few of his worshippers take him down and toss him in
the river."

The big room was devoid of furniture save for the rugs and several
blocks of stone grouped about the idol. Ridgeway was convinced that they
were in the sacred place of worship. Seating themselves rather
sacrilegiously upon the stone blocks, they looked about the place with
tired, hopeless eyes. The walls were hung with spears, war clubs and
other ferocious weapons, evidently the implements of defence to be used
by the stone deity in case of emergency.

"Well," quoth Hugh, after the gloomy inspection, "they must think that
gods don't sleep. I don't see anything that looks like a berth around
here. God or no god, I am going to turn in somewhere for the night. His
Reverence may be disturbed if I snore, but I dare say his kick won't
amount to much. I'll pile some of these skins over in that corner for
you and then I'll build a nest for myself near the door." Suiting the
action to the word, he proceeded to make a soft couch for her. She sat
by and watched him with troubled eyes.

"Do you think it safe to go to sleep when we don't know what they