their height. Their feathers waved, their jingles shook, and
their painted bodies twisted and turned in the light of the great
fire, which roared and leaped on high. At one moment they were
birds, at another animals, at the next they were demons.

The noise of the tomtoms and the harsh shouts of the Indians grew
wilder and wilder. It was weird and terrifying. Then came a
pause; the arena was cleared, and with much solemnity two
wicked-looking creatures came out and performed a sort of shadow
dance, brandishing knives as they glided through the intricate
figures.

It was a fascinating but unearthly scene, and the setting
completed the illusion. Fright deprived me of the power of
thought, but in a sort of subconscious way I felt that Orpheus
must have witnessed just such mad revels when he went down into
Pluto's regions. Suddenly the shouts became war whoops, the demons
brandished their knives madly, and nodded their branching horns;
the tomtoms were beaten with a dreadful din, and terror seized my
heart. What if they be treacherous, and had lured our small party
down into this ravine for an ambush! The thing could well be, I
thought. I saw uneasiness in the faces of the other women, and by
mutual consent we got up and slowly took our departure. I barely
had strength to climb up the steep side of the hollow. I was
thankful to escape from its horrors.

Scarce three months after that some of the same band of Indians
fired into the garrison and fled to the mountains. I remarked to
Jack, that I thought we were very imprudent to go to see that
dance, and he said he supposed we were. But I had never regarded