He was looking into a room twice as large as the dungeon cell and lighted by narrow windows whose lower panes were on a level with the ground outside.

At the farther end of the room, in full view, was a platform raised several feet from the main floor.

On this platform were seated ten men, immovable as statues, every face gazing straight ahead.
Directly in front of them, on the lower floor, stood the Mormon king, and at his side, partly held in the embrace of one of his arms was Winnsome! Strang's voice came to him in a low, solemn monotone, its rumbling depth drowning the words he was speaking, and as Nathaniel saw him lift his arm from about the girl's shoulders and place his great hand upon her head he dug his own fingers fiercely into the rotting logs and an imprecation burned in his breath.

He did not need to hear what the king was saying.

It was a pantomime in which every gesture was understandable.