He had a long bifurcate beard made of gold wire, feet like a
bird's, and other rather startling anatomical features. His throne was
set upon a stone plinth about twenty feet high, into the front of
which a doorway opened; behind him was a wooden screen, elaborately
gilded and painted.
Directly in front of the idol, Ghullam the high priest knelt on a big
blue and gold cushion. He wore a gold-fringed robe of dark blue, and a
tall conical gold miter, and a bright blue false beard, forked like
the idol's golden one: he was intoning a prayer, and holding up, in
both hands, for divine inspection and approval, a long curved knife.
Behind him, about thirty feel away, stood a square stone altar, around
which four of the lesser priests, in light blue robes with less gold
fringe and dark-blue false beards, were busy with the preliminaries to
the sacrifice. At considerable distance, about halfway down the length
of the temple, some two hundred worshipers--a few substantial citizens
in gold-fringed tunics, artisans in tunics without gold fringe,
soldiers in mail hauberks and plain steel caps, one officer in
ornately gilded armor, a number of peasants in nondescript smocks, and
women of all classes--were beginning to prostrate themselves on the
stone floor.
Ghullam rose to his feet, bowing deeply to Yat-Zar and holding the
knife extended in front of him, and backed away toward the altar.
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