Half a hundred yards ahead a fire was burning; oil and pine sent their lurid flame high up into the night, and in the thick gloom behind it, intensified by the blinding glare, Nathaniel saw the shadows of men.

He caught the old woman in his arms and went on boldly.

He passed close to a thin line of waiting men, saw the faint glint of firelight on their rifles, and staggering past them unchallenged with his weight he stopped for a moment to look back.
The effect was startling.

Beyond the three great fires that blazed around the temple the clearing was bathed in a sea of light; in its concealment of giant trees the temple was buried in gloom.

From the gloom a hundred cool men might slaughter five times their number charging across that illumined death-square! Nathaniel could not repress a shudder as he looked.