We sacrifice to thee, oh Sun!

Once more I caught Nyleptha's eye; it was fixed upon the brazen flooring.

'Look out,' I said, aloud; and as I said it, I saw Agon bend
forward and touch something on the altar. As he did so, the
great white sea of faces around us turned red and then white
again, and a deep breath went up like a universal sigh.
Nyleptha leant forward, and with an involuntary movement covered
her eyes with her hand. Sorais turned and whispered to the officer
of the royal bodyguard, and then with a rending sound the whole
of the brazen flooring slid from before our feet, and there in
its place was suddenly revealed a smooth marble shaft terminating
in a most awful raging furnace beneath the altar, big enough
and hot enough to heat the iron stern-post of a man-of-war.

With a cry of terror we sprang backwards, all except the wretched
Alphonse, who was paralysed with fear, and would have fallen
into the fiery furnace which had been prepared for us, had not
Sir Henry caught him in his strong hand as he was vanishing and
dragged him back.

Instantly there arose the most fearful hubbub, and we four got
back to back, Alphonse dodging frantically round our little circle
in his attempts to take shelter under our legs. We all had our
revolvers on -- for though we had been politely disarmed of our
guns on leaving the palace, of course these people did not know
what a revolver was. Umslopogaas, too, had his axe, of which
no effort had been made to deprive him, and now he whirled it
round his head and sent his piercing Zulu war-shout echoing up
the marble walls in fine defiant fashion. Next second, the priests,
baffled of their prey, had drawn swords from beneath their white
robes and were leaping on us like hounds upon a stag at bay.
I saw that, dangerous as action might be, we must act or be
lost, so as the first man came bounding along -- and a great
tall fellow he was -- I sent a heavy revolver ball through him,
and down he fell at the mouth of the shaft, and slid, shrieking
frantically, into the fiery gulf that had been prepared for us.

Whether it was his cries, or the, to them, awful sound and effect
of the pistol shot, or what, I know not, but the other priests
halted, paralysed and dismayed, and before they could come on
again Sorais had called out something, and we, together with
the two Queens and most of the courtiers, were being surrounded
with a wall of armed men. In a moment it was done, a