But their captive—if he were a captive seemed indifferent to all this. His dull eyes gazed straight ahead of him as if he were hypnotized—or, as was more probable, under the influence of some drug. As the group approached the altar the chanting suddenly stopped and the onlookers rose to their feet. From the altar now arose a thin spiral of smoke, the offspring of a fire kindled by one of the priests.
The sun was just setting and showed like a blood-red ball, through the mist that arose from low-lying garden lands. As its disk touched the horizon the chanting broke out afresh and the red-robed men seizing the old white man as if he were a beast dragged him forward and threw him on the altar.
And now for the first time came to the chums the horrifying realization of what the scene they were witnessing really meant.
The man was about to be sacrificed!
But even as the red-robed men raised their knives in unison and were about to give them the downward lunge that would extinguish the life of their feeble victim—and as the other priests and the audience turning toward the setting sun, chanted louder and more vociferously—a startling interruption occurred.
"By the holy poker you're not going to kill that old man while I can prevent it."
It was Billy Barnes; his face white and his lips set in a thin line of determination.
As he spoke utterly oblivious to the fact that not one of the men could understand him—Lathrop, pale-faced also, stepped forward by his side.
And there stood the two American boys while the auditors—at first dumb with amazement—began to buzz angrily like a nest of disturbed hornets.
One of the white-robed priests gave a sharp order and once more the red-garbed executors raised their knives.