The white men had spared this temple. Perhaps they knew that sometime it would serve as a trap. And so it had served. That there had been fateful happenings at this spot Eddring felt even before he had stepped out into the opening before him. He was oppressed by a heavy feeling of dread. Yet he went on, looking down closely in the failing light at the footprints which marked the ground. These footprints blended confusedly, leading up to the door of the house, disappearing in the rank growth all about. And crossing these human trails from one side to the other of the narrow island left by the rising waters, there ran a strange and distinct mark, as though one had swept here with a mighty broom, or had dragged across the ground repeatedly some soft and heavy body! In this path there were marks of feet deeply indented, with pointed toes. This trail, these foot-marks, horrid, suggestive, led up to the open door. Eddring hesitated to look in. He knew the tracks of the alligators, but guessed not why these creatures should enter a building, as was never their wont to do. It required determination to look into the door of what he knew was a house of mystery, perhaps of horror. Within the long room, now lighted faintly by the late twilight which filtered through the heavy growth about, he saw dimly the long benches fastened to the walls, as they had been when he first saw this place years before. In spite of himself, he started back in affright. The benches were tenanted! He could see figures here and there, a row of them. Some of them were bending forward, some sitting erect. But all of them were motionless, the postures of all were strained, as though they were bound! The house had its tenantry. But there was no central figure here now, no leader, no exhorter, no priest nor priestess. There was no shouting, nor any note of the savage drum. The drum itself, its head broken in, the drum of the savage tribes, lay near the door, its mission ended. This audience, whoever or whatever it might be, was silent, as though sleep had made fast the eyes of all! Eddring sprang back as he heard the scuffling of feet at the farther end of the hall. His teeth chattered in spite of himself, as this Thing, this creature of terror, came shuffling forward in the darkness, and with clanking jaws pushed past him, to disappear with a heavy splash in the water which now stood close at hand. It was a house of horror. It was the place of the black man's savage religion and of the white man's savage justice. Here the white man had wrought sternly in the name of his civilization, and his keel, departing like that of the fierce Norseman in the ancient past, had left no trail on the waters lapping the shore which had known his visitation. CHAPTER XIII THE NIGHT IN THE FOREST