I fear if it were missed, the savages below would come swarming up to discover the cause.

Take a light from the pile, and wave it yonder." The stubborn preacher grimly shook his head.
"Nay," he replied.

"I have borne part enough in their heathen orgies already; it will take a lifetime to purge my soul.

I bow down to Baal no more." It was useless to argue with such as he, nor had I spirit to do it.
"Then keep close guard over the priest," I retorted; and, grasping a torch from among the burning mass upon the altar, made haste toward the outer stone.
My eyes have seldom gazed upon a grander view of nature than that which greeted me, as I crept around the great rock, and peered over the edge down into that beautiful basin wherein the remnant of the Natchez had established their home.

The early sun had not as yet illumined the lower levels, and all beneath my dizzy perch remained wrapped in the sombre gray of promised dawn; the slightly rolling valley was dotted with numerous square-topped huts of yellow straw, surrounded by ponderous walls of gray stone or dun-colored earth, and the irregular green fields were intersected by a silvery ribbon of running water: the whole composed such a fair picture of restful, peaceful beauty, that for the moment it held me at the edge in silent contemplation.