The dance continued for a long time, the movements becoming ever more violent and fantastic, the cries more frantic, the drumming more swift and vigorous. At last, when the din was at its highest, the drummers gave one tremendous crash and dropped their sticks. The whirling and the yells ceased as by magic; the performers flung themselves fainting on the ground; and there was a great silence. But only for a few minutes. Then the men leapt to their feet again, rushed to the side of the cave, and returned, bringing the food laid there in readiness, and many gourds filled with the fermented sap of palm-trees. The torch-bearers stuck their torches in crannies on the walls, and the whole company gave themselves up to feasting. The girls turned sick as they watched the ravening gluttony of the men, and withdrew their eyes.
"No, no, wait," said Elizabeth; "I want to know what will happen."
Crouching below the opening, they waited for what seemed hours. The barbarous noise continued, voices were raised in excitement; but presently the uproar diminished, and finally ceased. Glancing down again, they saw the natives lying in all sorts of attitudes. Exhausted by the orgy, drunken with wine, they had fallen into a heavy sleep.
Some of the torches had gone out. Though the illumination was dimmer, the smoke was so much less that objects could more easily be distinguished. Against the wall at the right hand the girls saw what appeared at first to be a large bundle. But in a few moments they recognized the form of a man--an old man with a long white beard.
"It is the missionary!" whispered Elizabeth, clenching her hands in an agony of despair.
Heroism is a plant of strange growth. It springs up suddenly, mysteriously, in unexpected places. A simple peasant girl, tending her flocks, hears a Voice; and she becomes a warrior, a leader of men, the saviour of her country. A maidservant, after a day of scrubbing floors and washing dishes, is darning stockings in the kitchen when she smells fire, rushes into the bedroom where the children are asleep, and carries them one by one through the flames into safety, at the cost of her own life.
Such opportunities fall to few. The most of us trudge a very unheroic journey through life. The road may be dusty, with ups and downs, dangerous corners and wearisome hills; but we plod along, keeping pretty closely to the highway, and taking great care at the crossings. It is only the odd one here and there who, by what we call the accident of circumstance, or by some compelling adventurousness of spirit, strays into the golden fields of romance, and is transformed into the shining semblance of a hero.