ificial stone. Here on this ledge,
which covered an area no greater than that of a small room, and in front
of the altar, stood a man bound, in whom Leonard recognised Olfan, the
king, while on either side of him were priests, naked to the waist, and
armed with knives. Behind them again stood the little band of Settlement
men, trembling with terror. Nor were their fears groundless, for there
among them lay one of their number, dead. This was the man whose nerve
had broken down, who shrieked aloud in the darkness, and in reward had
been smitten into everlasting silence.

All this Leonard saw by degrees, but the first thing that he saw has
not yet been told. Long before the brilliant rays of the moon lit the
amphitheatre they struck upon the huge head of the dwarf idol, and
there, on this giddy perch, some seventy feet from the ground, and
nearly a hundred above the level of the pool of seething water, sat
Juanna herself, enthroned in an ivory chair. She had been divested of
her black cloak, and was clad in the robe of snowy linen cut low upon
her breast, and fastened round her waist with a girdle. Her dark hair
flowed about her shoulders; in either hand she held the lilies, red and
white, and upon her forehead glowed the ruby like a blood-red star. She
sat quite still, her eyes set wide in horror; and first the moonlight
gleamed upon the gem bound to her forehead, next it showed the pale and
lovely face beneath, then her snowy arms and breast, the whiteness of
her robes, and the hideous demon head whereon her throne was fixed.

No spirit could have seemed more beautiful than this woman set thus
on high in that dark place of blood and fear. Indeed, in the unearthly
light she looked like a spirit, the spirit of beauty triumphing over
the hideousness of hell, the angel of light trampling the Devil and his
works.

It was not wonderful that this fierce and barbarous people sighed
like reeds before the wind when her loveliness dawned upon them, made
ethereal by the moon, or that thenceforth Leonard could never think of
her quite as he thought of any other woman. Under such conditions most
well-favoured women would have appeared beautiful; Juanna did more, she
seemed divine.

As the light grew downward and the shadows thinned before it, Leonard
followed with his eyes, and presently he discovered Otter. The dwarf,
naked except for his girdle and the fringe upon his head, was also
enthroned, holding the ivory sceptre in his h