"I'll do anything you think best," she said reluctantly, kneeling for a moment with him before the idol. Whereupon the chief and his attendants shouted for joy and fell upon their much-used faces. The populace, thronging about the temple, took up the cry, and all night long they chanted praise to the living gods. The weird, ghastly figures flitted from end to end of the mad village long after the chief and his party had left the temple to the sole possession of the new divinities.
"I wonder if they expect us to sit up forever as sedately as that old party over there," mused Hugh, after the savages had withdrawn, greatly to the mystification of their guests. "We're evidently left here to make the best of it. I fancy we are now supposed to be in business as real gods with a steady job in the temple."
"I am beginning to think we have come to a terrible place, Hugh. How fierce and wild these people are! What is to become of us?" asked she, shivering as with a chill. "How horrible it would be if they brought us here as a sacrifice to this beastly idol. Is there no way of escape?"
"Nonsense! We've queered this antiquated old fossil forever. Two real live gods are worth ten thousand stone quarries like that. If you say so, I'll have a few of his worshippers take him down and toss him in the river."
The big room was devoid of furniture save for the rugs and several blocks of stone grouped about the idol. Ridgeway was convinced that they were in the sacred place of worship. Seating themselves rather sacrilegiously upon the stone blocks, they looked about the place with tired, hopeless eyes. The walls were hung with spears, war clubs and other ferocious weapons, evidently the implements of defence to be used by the stone deity in case of emergency.
"Well," quoth Hugh, after the gloomy inspection, "they must think that gods don't sleep. I don't see anything that looks like a berth around here. God or no god, I am going to turn in somewhere for the night. His Reverence may be disturbed if I snore, but I dare say his kick won't amount to much. I'll pile some of these skins over in that corner for you and then I'll build a nest for myself near the door." Suiting the action to the word, he proceeded to make a soft couch for her. She sat by and watched him with troubled eyes.
"Do you think it safe to go to sleep when we don't know what they may do during the night? They may pounce upon us and kill us." Hugh paused in his work and walked to her side.
"Something tells me we are safe with these people. We may as well make the best of it, anyhow. We are in for it, and I'll bet my soul we come out all right. Go over there and sleep. I'll be the first one killed if they attempt violence. Here's a club that will down a few of them before they get the best of me." He took from the wall a great murderous-looking club and swung it about his head.
"I want to be killed first, Hugh, if it comes to that. If you are merciful, you will kill me yourself when you see that it is their intention to do so," she said earnestly.
"Pooh, there's no danger," he said, and went back to his work, impressed by her manner more than he cared to admit. With her chin in her hands she resignedly watched him complete her bed of tiger skins.