To add to the weird horror of the scene, high above and mingling with the smoke clouds were scores of great bats, fully three feet across in the stretch of their leathern wings, with which they silently flapped through the gloom till they succeeded in reaching one or other of the windows through which the smoke poured, and thence the outer air. "Horrible!" cried the captain. "It is weird in the extreme," said Sir Humphrey; "but it is interesting." The men who had been hacking away the vines stood in a group, silent and awe-stricken, gazing at the grotesque figures and the flickering shadows they cast as the fire rose and fell and lit up the strange interior to the farthest corner. "Well, Brace," said Briscoe, "I don't call this pretty; but I'd have taken twice as much trouble to get here so as to see it. Throw on some more of this dead stuff, lads. There's a good draught comes in and carries the heat upwards, and it will make a clearance of all these birds' nests and rubbish." "It is horrible," said Brace, as the men hurried to obey the order given, and the flames leaped up and up, revealing the many figures from fresh points of view in the golden ruddy glare. "But I feel like you, Briscoe; I shouldn't have liked to miss this." "These are the old bogies with which the priests who lived in the cells upstairs used to scare the people and keep them under. I wonder whether they ever thought to light up the place." "No doubt they did," said Sir Humphrey, who had now joined them. "That square erection at the back there, surrounded by small figures, must have been the altar, and no doubt they burned a fire upon that." "Think so, sir," said the captain. "Well, I didn't think we were coming up to see a sight like this. Old Dellow will be a bit mad at missing it, eh, Lynton?" "But he shan't miss it," said Briscoe. "We must light it up again. Say, Brace, I can't see any sign of holes. The floor's covered with rubbish and stony dust, but it seems to me that we can walk right back among those two rows of images to the altar. I want to see what those things are round about it." "Well, let's take hold of hands and try," replied Brace. "We can try every step before us with the butts of our guns." "Be careful," cried Sir Humphrey. "Yes; we'll mind," said Brace. "Let the men throw on more dead dry stuff; Lynton; and only a little at a time so as to keep up a good light." "All right, sir," was the response, and more flame and light and less smoke was the result, while more light came in from the windows above, for as the hot acrid smoke poured out the leafage writhed and crinkled up, taking up half the space it had occupied before. There was nothing to hinder the advance, as Brace and Briscoe carefully felt their way between the two rows of menacing figures, till they reached the square elevation, a good ten feet high, and then found that they could ascend a flight of steps thick with powdered stone.