Instantly one of the priests raised a horn to his lips.
As the weird note trembled through the temple, the whole band closed about Mervyn and hustled him forward towards the further end of the amphitheatre, where stretched a line of bars. Straight towards this barrier the scientist was thrust and driven, until he was close enough to see that beside it stood a huge stone windlass.
Here the priests halted, and once again the blast of the horn echoed amid the cliffs.
At that a multitude of sinister forms poured into the vast enclosure. Rank upon rank, they thronged in and took their places silently, until the whole floor of the temple, up to within a few yards of the spot where stood Nordhu and the priests, was covered with a heaving sea of bodies.
As he noted the wolfish forms of the creatures, their terrible aspect, Mervyn, despite his terror, felt thankful that he had not revealed to Nordhu the secret he so longed to know.
Fervently he prayed that his comrades might not fall into the hands of the devilish priest through any mad attempt to rescue him.
The hopelessness of any such effort, the utter impossibility of it, was plain to him. An army would be overwhelmed in a few moments by these countless hordes! What chance, then, had his friends? At most they were but four in number, and, with all their daring, they would not be able to pluck him from out the clutches of the priest.
So thinking, the scientist commended his soul to his Maker, waiting, pale faced but undaunted in spirit, for the terrible death which he knew would soon be his.
What form it would take he knew not; but he was aware that somewhere behind that row of bars lurked the beast to whose murderous appetite he was to be sacrificed. The suspense was terrible. Anything was better than this drawn-out agony, and he was glad when, suddenly, the high priest raised his hand.
Instantly a thunderous shout of “Nordhu! Nordhu!” pealed upward from a myriad throats. It ceased abruptly, and a tense, brooding silence followed, broken a few moments later by the harsh voice of the chief priest.