The leader was a priest, black from head to heel, his face showing devilish in the torch flare, his coarse hair matted high in horrid resemblance to some wild beast.

Behind surged a mob of warriors, women, and children, half-nude bodies striped with red and yellow, a malignant demoniacal crew, yelling and pushing under the flaming lights, rushing tumultuously forward to fling themselves prostrate before the altar.

It seemed they would never cease pouring forth from the narrow tunnel, a struggling, gesticulating stream.

Behind them lightning played in jagged streaks across the little patch of sky, and the black smoke of the torches curled upward to the roof.

Their appearance was not human, but that of demons incarnate; some ran upon all fours like wolves, gnashing their teeth and howling; many yelped in fiendish chorus; others brandished weapons aloft in the yellow flame, or lay, writhing like glistening snakes on the rock floor.