m are his wives?" said she, doubtingly.

"It seems to be a heathen's choice to punish himself on earth and avoid
it in the hereafter."

Behind the women came five men wearing long white robes and carrying
unusually long spears. They were followed by the rabble. At length the
weird cavalcade, marching straight across the plain, came to a halt not
more than a hundred feet from the entrance to the temple. The chief
advanced a few steps, pausing at the edge of a bare, white spot of
ground some ten feet square. Then, after a most reverential bow, he
tossed a small reddish chunk of wood into the white square. No sooner
had the leader deposited his piece of wood than forward came the women,
the white-robed men, and then the rag-tag of the population, each person
tossing a piece upon the rapidly growing heap. In silent amusement,
Ridgeway and Lady Tennys watched this strange ceremony.

"They've been visiting somebody's woodpile," speculated Hugh.

"Perhaps they intend to roast us alive," ventured she.

The small army fell back from the pile of wood, the chief maintaining a
position several feet to the fore, a lad behind him bearing a lighted
torch. After many signs and presumably devout antics, one of the
spearmen took the torch and lighted this contribution from a combined
populace. As the thin column of smoke arose on the still, hot air, the
vast crowd fell to the ground as one person, arising almost instantly to
begin the wildest, most uncanny dance that mortal ever saw. The smoke
and flames grew, the dry wood crackled, the spearmen poked it with their
long weapons, and the vast brown audience went into a perfect frenzy
of fervor.

Not until the pile was reduced to ashes did the smoke dance cease. The
spearmen retired, and the big chief came forward with a tread so
ludicrously grand that they could scarce refrain from laughter. He
carried two short staffs in his hands, the heads of which were nothing
less than the skulls of infants. To the disgust of the white people the
chief presented to each of them a shudder-inspiring wand. Afterward they
learned that the skull-tipped staffs signified death to all who opposed
their way. They also learned that the red bits of wood that had gone up
in the flame were stained by the blood of a half dozen prisoners of war,
executed the night before as a sacrifice to the new gods.

The new monarchs accepted the sceptres gingerly and the wildest glee
broke loose in the waiting throng. Wh