Still he did not return the thing, fearing lest he should give offence.
At this moment his attention was taken from the treasure by the sound of a groan behind him.

Turning round he perceived Jeekie, his great eyes rolling as though in an extremity of fear.
"Oh my golly! Major," he ejaculated, pointing to the wall, "look there." Alan looked, but at first in that dim light could only discover long rows of gleaming objects which reached from the floor to the roof.
"Come and see," said the Asika, and taking a lamp from that table on which lay the gems, she led him past the piles of gold to one side of the vault or hall.

Then he saw, and although he did not show it, like Jeekie he was afraid.
For there, each in his own niche and standing one above the other, were what looked like hundreds of golden men with gleaming eyes.

At first until the utter stillness undeceived him, he thought that they _must_ be men.

Then he understood that this was what they had been; now they were corpses wrapped in sheets of thin gold and wearing golden masks with eyes of crystal, each mask being beaten out to a hideous representation of the man in life.
"All these are the husbands of my spirit," said the priestess, waving the lamp in front of the lowest row of them, "Munganas who were married to the Asikas in the past.