As Captain Mason and Hobart had no disguise, I alone must bring the two men out. My companions would take them to the colony; I would remain to face the issue and divert the pursuit. Captain Mason looked very grave, but Hobart was all eagerness; I could guess that his sore spirit yearned to heal itself by sharing my risk. A longing for Christopher,—for his far-seeing eye, his steady nerve, his quick hand,—came over me.
“I remember,” I explained in showing why I should not make the dash at once, “that a ring was fastened in the rock about where Mr. Vancouver and Rawley are sitting. They must be chained to it. I must wait until they are released.”
We knew that the delay would mean an augmentation of the crowd and the danger.
Of course the theft of the wood had been discovered. The hut sheltering it had disappeared; its poles and dryer thatch were already piled on the altar. The sacrifice was only delayed, for two-score natives were coming in with dry wood for which they had foraged. In that pursuit one came near us, and I made ready, but in his eagerness he passed on, unseeing. The priest at the altar received the wood, examined it, cast out the useless, and carefully stacked the pyre, which steadily grew.
Silence rested on the crowd. Here was religion in its naked birth,—the elemental man using torture and murder for prayer, with greater reverence and faith than I have seen in some modern fashions of placation or appeal. Fronting them across the dim chasm of the valley was the embodied Force whose wrath must be appeased. Could the white blood in Lentala permit this form of worship?
We could see through the trees the indefinite black mass of the Face. At small intervals came low subterranean growls and slight tremors of the earth. It was as though the underground gods were gathering their strength.
Finally the priest’s work was done. He slowly went to the chained men, stood over them, and raised his hand. Four men came forward, followed by four others, who took positions back of him. Twenty more came and formed a cordon about the altar.
The first four knelt, and the chains fell clanking. Rawley rose without assistance. Being speechless with a gag, he implored in dumb show for Mr. Vancouver, offering himself alone. There was a low colloquy between the priests and the four, at the end of which his gesture commanded that Mr. Vancouver also be taken to the stone. As two men stooped to lift him and two others took each an arm of Rawley, the priest began a solemn chant in a minor key, and started the slow march to the pyre, Mr. Vancouver on the shoulders of two men, Rawley walking firm and erect.
At the altar the priest ceased his chant, which was taken up by the crowd; but, though there were many hundreds of voices, they were so soft and in such fine unison that the volume was hardly greater than that of a dozen men. As it proceeded, the priest picked up a vessel containing smothered coals, blew them into life, and ignited the thatch at the four corners. Evidently the victims were to be further tied, and tossed aloft when the fire was hot.
As the priest stepped back to see the blaze rise, I bounded into the open.