Meanwhile, at a sign from the Asika, all the scores of priests and priestesses who were dressed as devils had filed off to right and left, and vanished, presumably to cross the water by bridges or boats that were out of sight.  At any rate now they began to appear upon its further side and to wind their way singly among the thousands of the Asiki people who were gathered upon the rocky slope beyond in order to witness this fearsome entertainment.  Alan observed that the spectators did not appear to appreciate the arrival amongst them of these priests, from whom they seemed to edge away.  Indeed many of them rose and tried to depart altogether, only to be driven back to their places by a double line of soldiers armed with spears, who now for the first time became visible, ringing in the audience.  Also other soldiers and with them bodies of men who looked like executioners, showed themselves upon the further brink of the water and then marched off, disappearing to left and right.

“What’s the matter now?” Alan asked of Jeekie over his shoulder.

“All in blue funk,” whispered Jeekie back, “joke done.  Get to business now.  Silly fools forget that when they laugh so much.  Both Bonsas very hungry and Asika want wipe out old scores.  Presently you see.”

Presently Alan did see, for at some preconcerted signal the devil priests, each of them, jumped with a yell at a person near to them, gripping him or her by the hair, whereon assistants rushed in and dragged them down to the bank of the canal.  Here to the number of a hundred or more, a wailing, struggling mass, they were confined in a pen like sheep.  Then a bar was lifted and one of them allowed to escape, only to find himself in a kind of gangway which ran down into shallow water.  Being forced along this he came to an open space of water exactly opposite to the floating fetishes, and there was kept a while by men armed with spears.  As nothing happened they lifted their spears and the man bolted up an incline and was lost among the thousands of spectators.

The next one, evidently a person of rank, was not so fortunate.  Jumping into the pool off the gangway, he stood there like a sheep about to be washed, the water reaching up to his middle.  Then Alan saw a terrifying thing, for suddenly the horrid, golden head of Big Bonsa, towing Little Bonsa behind it, began to swim with a deliberate motion across the stream until, reaching the man, it seemed to rear itself up and poke him with its snout in the chest as a turtle might do.  Then it sank again into the water and slowly floated back to its station, directed by some agency or power that Alan could not discover.