In some trepidation they walked to the corner of the temple and surveyed the hillside.  Rising steeply from the low ground ran the green slope, at the top of which grew huge trees.  The village lay at the base of the hills and was over a mile long, a perfect semi-circle of strange little huts, stretched out in a single line, with the temple as its central point.

“There is the beginning of our underground stream,” exclaimed he, pointing up the elevation.  A fierce little stream came plunging from the very heart of the mound, half way to the summit, tearing eagerly to the bottom, where it disappeared in the ground.

Suddenly the sound of distant shouting—­or chanting, to be explicit—­and the beating of drums came to their ears.  They searched the hills and valley with alarm and dread in their eyes, but there was no sign of humanity.  For many minutes the chanting continued, growing louder in volume as it drew nearer.  At last Lady Tennys uttered an exclamation and pointed toward an opening in the ridge far to the left of the village.  A string of natives came winding slowly, solemnly from this cleft—­men, women and children apparently without end.

The white people stood like statues in the doorway, watching the approach of the brown figures.  There were fully two thousand in that singular procession, at the head of which strode the big chief, with perhaps fifty native women at his heels.

“His multiplied wife,” observed Hugh sententiously.

“Do you think all of them 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.