'Swift! strip them for the altar.' But the Teules were gone, nor, search where they would, could they find them.
'Their God has taken them beneath His wing,' I said, speaking from the shadow and in a feigned voice.

'Huitzel cannot prevail before the God of the Teules.' Then I slipped aside, so that none knew that it was I who had spoken, but the cry was caught up and echoed far and wide.
'The God of the Christians has hidden them beneath His wing.

Let us make merry with those whom He rejects,' said the cry, and the last of the captives were dragged away.
Now I thought that all was finished, but this was not so.

I have spoken of the secret purpose which I read in the sullen eyes of the Indian women as they laboured at the barricades, and I was about to see its execution.

Madness still burned in the hearts of these women; they had accomplished their sacrifice, but their festival was still to come.