resist, for he sees that resistance is death; and
half-dragged, half-leading, he conducts them to the ground-floor of the
building.

He enters by a passage covered with the shaggy hides of the buffalo.
Seguin follows, keeping his eye and hand upon him. We crowd after,
close upon the heels of both.

We pass through dark ways, descending, as we go, through an intricate
labyrinth. We arrive in a large room, dimly lighted. Ghastly images
are before us and around us, the mystic symbols of a horrid religion!
The walls are hung with hideous shapes and skins of wild beasts. We can
see the fierce visages of the grizzly bear, of the white buffalo, of the
carcajou, of the panther, and the ravenous wolf. We can recognise the
horns and frontlets of the elk, the cimmaron, and the grim bison. Here
and there are idol figures, of grotesque and monster forms, carved from
wood and the red claystone of the desert.

A lamp is flickering with a feeble glare; and on a brazero, near the
centre of the room, burns a small bluish flame. It is the sacred fire--
the fire that for centuries has blazed to the god Quetzalcoatl!

We do not stay to examine these objects. The fumes of the charcoal
almost suffocate us. We run in every direction, overturning the idols
and dragging down the sacred skins.

There are huge serpents gliding over the floor, and hissing around our
feet. They have been disturbed and frightened by the unwonted
intrusion. We, too, are frightened, for we hear the dreaded rattle of
the crotalus!

The men leap from the ground, and strike at them with the butts of their
rifles. They crush many of them on the stone pavement.

There are shouts and confusion. We suffer from the exhalations of the
charcoal. We shall be stifled. Where is Seguin? Where has he gone?

Hark! There are screams! It is a female voice! There are voices of
men, too!

We rush towards the spot where they are heard. We dash aside the walls
of pendant skins. We see the chief. He has a female in his arms--a
girl, a beautiful girl, robed in gold and bright plumes.

She is screaming as we enter, and struggling to escape him. He holds
her firmly, and has torn open the fawn-skin sleeve of her tunic. He is
gazing on her left arm, which is bared to the bosom!

"It is she! it is she!" he cries, in a voice trembling with emotion.
"Oh, God! it is she! Adele! Adele! do you not know me? Me--your
father?"

Her screams continue. She pushes hi