Only one narrow white line reached up to the temple doorway. On
either side, right up to the gopuras and stretching far away down the
branching paths, a living mass stood and waited, their faces turned
toward him. Pilgrims they might have been, but he saw in the foremost
row men with their dark hands clasped over the muzzles of their
rifles, and every here and there the sunlight flashed back a
reflection from the cold steel at their sides. They made no sound as
he rode between them; only a soft shuffling behind him told him that
the human wall was closing in. He did not turn. His eyes passed calmly
over the watching faces, and the hands that played at their
dagger-hilts fell away as though the piercing gaze had paralyzed them.
Thus he reached the temple, where he dismounted.
No one had told him, but he well understood that this was his
destination, and with a firm step passed into the inner court. For an
instant the sudden change from brilliant daylight to an almost
complete darkness dazzled him. He saw nothing but a moving shadow
intermingled with points of fire that glowed steadily in two long rows
up to the altar, where fell a single ray of golden sunshine. Helmet in
hand, he moved slowly forward, every nerve strung taut with suspense.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the curious half-light, he saw that the
unreal shadows were men grouped on either side behind rows of
torch-bearers. The red flare fell on their fixed, unmoved faces, and
threw weird shadows backward and forward among the massive pillars
whose capitals faded into the intensified gloom overhead.
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