"I am like a damned hen with a chalk circle drawn round it!" Cuxson had
exclaimed when he tried over and over again to pass the invisible line;
and he cursed aloud as he felt the deep sleep creeping upon him at
various hours of the day and night, and from which there was no escape,
try as he would to keep awake.

But upon the day when he heard the tinkle of silver anklets and the
bleating of the goat, something, just as curiously incomprehensible,
had urged him to walk to the ruined mass of stones which hid the
priest's entrance and exit; and he had walked across the sun-stricken
court without let or hindrance, or covering to his head, and had found
on the other side a low doorway almost choked with jungle growth.

He had not paused to think nor plan; he had merely bent his tall figure
and crept through and down the narrow, decaying passage, along which,
dotted irregularly here and there, shone little lights in tiny
earthenware saucers. He had paused once or twice, sickened by the
sight of offerings of which a description is not necessary, and
shivered, strong man though he was, when he had met the eyes of gods
leering, or glaring at him from little hewn-out shrines in the
crumbling masonry.

His feet made no sound, for the narrow way was choked with the dust of
ages, and he gave no thought to what might lurk in the shadows in the
shape of beast or reptile, so intent was he on reaching the place which
held the woman, and which had seemed near when she had laughed, and
unaccountably far away as he stole stealthily forward.

The passage twisted at every few yards, and once he had found himself
at a dead end in what he thought must be the priest's living room, as
far as he could make out by the dim light coming through a tiny
aperture high up in the wall. He had dimly seen a bed of leaves, a
single covering, and an earthenware platter and jug, before he turned
quickly and retreated when something hissed softly and rustled among
the leaves.

Having got back into the passage and made some considerable headway, he
was almost choked, when on turning a corner he had been enveloped in a
sickly sweet smell of many flowers, allied to some sickening odour to
which he could give no name; and then he had stopped dead, and
flattened himself against the wall as he realised that he had come out
by the side of the altar into the temple itself.

Arranged neatly on each side of the doorway were glittering brass
vessels, brass tray