Terror seized the witnesses of this unaccustomed and, to them, most awful sight.
"The gods speak with flame and thunder," one cried, "and death is in the flame." "Silence, dogs!" screamed Nam, "ye are bewitched.

Ho! you that stand on high, cast down the wizard who is named Deliverer, and let us see who will deliver him from death upon the stone." Then one of the guards who stood by him made a movement to grasp Leonard and throw him down, but the other was terrified and could not stir.

The first man stretched out his arm, but before it so much as touched its aim he himself was dead, for, seeing his purpose, Leonard had lifted the rifle, and once more its report rang through the temple.

Suddenly the priest threw his arms wide, then fell backwards, and with a mighty rush dived into sheer space to crash lifeless on the stone floor below, where he lay, his head and hands hanging over the edge of the pool.
Now for the first time Otter's emotions overcame him.

He stood up on the knees of the dwarf, and shaking the sceptre in his hand, he pointed with it to the dead men on the paving below, at the same time crying in stentorian tones: "Well done, Baas, well done! Now tumble the old one yonder off his perch, for I weary of his howlings." This speech of Otter's produced even a greater effect on the spectators, if that were possible, than the mysterious death of the priests.