Two priests clad in horns and tails leapt on to the dais and at a signal unlaced the mask of Little Bonsa.

Now the Asika lifted it from her streaming face and held it on high, then she lowered it to the level of her breast, and holding it in both hands, walked to the edge of the dais, whereon priests, disguised as fiends, began to leap at it, striving to reach it with their fingers and snatch it from her grasp.
One by one they leapt with the most desperate energy, each man being allowed to make three attempts, and Alan noted that this novel jumping competition was watched with the deepest interest by all the audience, at the time he knew not why.
The first two were evidently elderly men who failed to come anywhere near the mark.

Their failure was received with shouts of derision.

They sank exhausted to the ground and from the motion of his body Alan could see that one of them was weeping, while the other remained sullenly silent.

Then a younger man advanced and at the third try almost grasped the fetish.