The courtyard was big, the native crowd railed in at one end left a large space bare, and here in the centre of the stamped brown earth a great pile of burning charcoal was heaped. Twenty feet long, and nearly as many broad, it glowed a solid mass of quivering heat, while priests at each corner stood fanning the sullen red to an ever fiercer flame. It was not hot enough yet, and in the sunshine of that April afternoon we waited. At the further end of the courtyard a broad band of salt lay on the brown earth like a white step to the altar. The great fans of the fanning priests sent puffs of heat across the court that made the distinguished guests shrink back. And yet the glowing charcoal pyre was not hot enough. Behind us, in a corner of the courtyard, stood a bamboo ladder, whose every rung was made of the razor-blade of a Japanese sword, set edge upwards. As we all stood waiting, watching the solid altar of red flame grow redder, a young man came out of the temple and crossed the court. He was dressed in the short white tunic of religious festivals, and his legs and feet were bare. He bowed to the party of distinguished guests, to the priests, to the old High Priest, and from his manner I judged him not a priest, but a temple attendant. Among the crowd there was a murmur, a sway of intense excitement, and then a dead stillness. In the stillness the young man put his bare foot upon the lowest rung of the ladder, and an involuntary shudder went through us all. A large-checked tourist, pushing every one aside, rushed up to the ladder, and felt a sword-rung with his hand. Then he came back, and across his open palm a ruled red line of blood rose up swiftly. There was a whispering among the priests, a commotion in the crowd, but the polite expressions of regret from the old High Priest were courtly with honorifics. The large-checked tourist tied his hand up clumsily in his own pocket-handkerchief, and looked annoyed. The fanning priests, with rhythmic movements of their hands and bodies, chased the living heat across the court, and did not pause. Again there was a murmur in the crowd, a stretching of necks to see, and a dead silence. The white-tuniced attendant, who had stood quite still beside the ladder, placed his bare foot upon the lowest rung, and I saw the large-checked tourist wince as though his injured hand were there instead. Lightly as a sailor climbs, the young man ran up the ladder rung by rung, and neither hands nor feet grew red. On the top he stayed, looking down, and a shudder like a cry of pain went through the courtyard. Then he turned, hanging for one brief moment by his knees on the topmost rung--turned, and came down again. In the April sunshine the sword-blades, from top to bottom of the ladder, glittered spotless. Firmly on his bare, brown feet the young man walked across the court, bowed to the party of distinguished visitors, to the priests, to the old High Priest, and disappeared within the temple.