For an instant it seemed as though the two wolf-men were about to interfere. Doubtless they were afraid that they would suffer for Nordhu’s rash action if Ramouni fulfilled his threat; but the high priest was quite ready for the emergency. With consummate skill he flung his voice between the lips of the image. “Thou hast done well, O priest,” came the piping tones. “I did but try thee, whether thou wert faithful to me or no. Let my people make merry over the death of this white stranger, for he is mine enemy.” Every word of this speech Mervyn heard, as he struggled painfully to his feet; yet he was powerless to resist the devilish schemes of the merciless monster beside him. With a fiendish grin overspreading his features, the priest raised his voice in a piercing cry: “Ayoki! Ayoki!” The word pealed twice from his lips, and, ere the echoes had died, into the temple filed a score of dark figures. Right up to the altar they glided, moving with scarce a sound, and formed a semicircle about the high priest and his prisoner. At their advent the wolf-men rose and vanished, seeming glad to leave the presence of the image, which their ignorant superstitious minds credited with supernatural powers. The newcomers, each of whom was clad somewhat scantily in a coarse skin mantle, were creatures of the same type as the high priest, save that, if anything, their faces were more brutalised and repulsive. They glared fiercely at the scientist as they stood waiting for Nordhu to speak. “Priests of Ramouni,” he began at last, “our god hath decided that this white stranger shall be delivered unto Rahee, the sacred beast. Let the people of the underworld be summoned.” Instantly one of the priests raised a horn to his lips. As the weird note trembled through the temple, the whole band closed about Mervyn and hustled him forward towards the further end of the amphitheatre, where stretched a line of bars. Straight towards this barrier the scientist was thrust and driven, until he was close enough to see that beside it stood a huge stone windlass. Here the priests halted, and once again the blast of the horn echoed amid the cliffs. At that a multitude of sinister forms poured into the vast enclosure. Rank upon rank, they thronged in and took their places silently, until the whole floor of the temple, up to within a few yards of the spot where stood Nordhu and the priests, was covered with a heaving sea of bodies. As he noted the wolfish forms of the creatures, their terrible aspect, Mervyn, despite his terror, felt thankful that he had not revealed to Nordhu the secret he so longed to know. Fervently he prayed that his comrades might not fall into the hands of the devilish priest through any mad attempt to rescue him.