We were now at the entrance to the temple. Heavy yellow curtains covered the portal, and within a gong droned slowly.
Summoning courage, we pushed aside the draperies and entered.
The place was large and dimly lighted. Low red seats ran crossways in long rows. At the far end, against the east wall, was the altar, before which were drawn deep yellow hangings. In front of these, under a hood of golden gauze, burned a solitary light. There was a terror in this mysterious dusk that gave me a strange thrill.
The audience was standing, silent, with bowed heads, by the rows of seats. Quaking inwardly, we took places in the last row, where the light was dimmest. So perfectly were our costumes and make-up a match for those around us that we attracted no attention.
All at once the tempo of the gong’s droning changed, becoming slower and more weird, and other gongs joined in at intervals. The illumination, which appeared to come solely from the ceiling, brightened somewhat.
Then a door opened on the right, about midway of the building, and there appeared a being such as I never beheld before. He was tall and lean and wore a robe of golden silk. Behind him came another—a priest in superb violet; and behind him a third in flaming orange. They wore high helmets with feathery plumes.
In the hands of each priest were peculiar instruments—or images, if so they might be called. Above a handle about two feet long, held vertically, was a thin rod curved upward in a semi-circle, at each end of which was a flat disk about a foot in diameter—one disk of silver, the other of gold. As I scrutinized these emblems I wondered if they were meant to symbolize the Seuen-H’sin’s belief in two moons.
Slowly the priests advanced to a central aisle, then forward to an open space, or hall of prayer, before the altar.
Then a door opened on the left, opposite the first portal, and from it issued a fourth priest in robes of richest purple, followed by another in crimson, and still another in wondrous green. They, also, wore the high, feathery helmets and carried the instruments with gold and silver disks.
When the last three had joined the first trio, other portals opened along the sides of the temple and half a dozen more priests entered and strode forward. The brilliant colors of their frocks seemed a part of the devilish gong-droning. In the dim vastness of the temple they moved on, silent as ghosts. There was something singularly depressing in the slow, noiseless steps. It was as if they were walking to their death.