"THE FUGITIVES MADE A CAUTIOUS ENTRY INTO THE SACRED PRECINCTS"
While endeavoring to get a closer view of the idol, Rob stumbled and pitched forward, thrusting his outstretched hands into an invisible but shallow tank of water. He uttered a yell of affright as he withdrew them and sprang back. "It's a nest of snakes!" he cried—"slimy, wriggling snakes!"
"Hush!" admonished Jo, listening intently; but there was no sound, save of a slight splashing in the as yet unseen water.
"If there were any priests here your racket certainly would have roused them," he said. "But, as nobody seems to be stirring, I expect we've got the place to ourselves. Close the door while I make a light, so that we can see where we are."
From the floor the speaker gathered a few bits of unburned joss-paper that he laid on the faintly glowing altar embers and blew into a blaze. Though this lasted but a moment, it served to show some half-burned candles standing behind the altar, one of which Jo lighted from the expiring flame.
By this faint light the lads discovered a number of crude figures of men and beasts ranged on either side of the rain-god, while a pool of water glittered at their feet. In it squirmed a score or more of eels, emblems of the god, among which Rob had thrust his arms.