the great deserted chamber. Even amid that lonely silence it was
a sight to chill the heart; and to us, comprehending something of what
it would soon reveal of savage orgy. It was like gazing down into the
mouth of the Pit. The single touch of color in the drear picture came
from the crimson drapery hanging over the edge of the raised platform.
Seeing all this at one glance my anxious eyes sought the deeper gloom
shrouding the tunnel leading toward the entrance. As I stared that way
a sudden flash of fierce lightning illumined it. So brilliant it burst
forth from the opaque night, I hid my blinded eyes, every nerve of my
body quivering.

"Great God!" burst forth Cairnes, his voice so close as to startle me.
"'T is like the end of the world!"

"Be still," I commanded hastily, pressing him flat, "there they come."

A dozen flaming torches rounded the rock projection the lights
glistening over the half-naked bodies of the bearers. Saint Andrew! it
was a weird sight, one to strike terror to the soul! With gritted
teeth, my heart pounding, I looked out upon it. The leader was a
priest, black from head to heel, his face showing devilish in the torch
flare, his coarse hair matted high in horrid resemblance to some wild
beast. Behind surged a mob of warriors, women, and children, half-nude
bodies striped with red and yellow, a malignant demoniacal crew,
yelling and pushing under the flaming lights, rushing tumultuously
forward to fling themselves prostrate before the altar. It seemed they
would never cease pouring forth from the narrow tunnel, a struggling,
gesticulating stream. Behind them lightning played in jagged streaks
across the little patch of sky, and the black smoke of the torches
curled upward to the roof. Their appearance was not human, but that of
demons incarnate; some ran upon all fours like wolves, gnashing their
teeth and howling; many yelped in fiendish chorus; others brandished
weapons aloft in the yellow flame, or lay, writhing like glistening
snakes on the rock floor. It was a pandemonium, a babel, an
unspeakable hell. To count was impossible, but the great room was
filled with bodies, and rang with guttural, inarticulate cries. The
busily flitting priests stirred up the wood until the blaze leaped
nearly to the roof, mumbling as they worked, the incessant moaning of
the tribesmen deepening into a weird chant. The frenzied singers leapt
into the air, flinging their limbs about in wild con