A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille

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the victims! Rejoice! Give thanks to darkness!"
Then another of the youths went forward amid the singing, and laid
himself down to meet the same fate; and again the corpse was flung
from the top of the pyramid, and again the shout arose. All the others
came forward in the same manner. Oh, horrible, horrible, thrice
horrible spectacle! I do not remember how I endured it. I sat there
with Almah, trying to restrain myself as she had entreated me, more
for her sake than for my own, a prey to every feeling of horror,
anguish, and despair. How it all ended I do not know, nor do I know
how I got away from the place; for I only remember coming back to my
senses in the lighted grotto, with Almah bending anxiously over me.
After this there remained a dark mystery and an ever-present horror. I
found myself among a people who were at once the gentlest of the human
race and the most blood-thirsty--the kindest and the most cruel. This
mild, amiable, and self-sacrificing Kohen, how was it possible that
he should transform himself to a fiend incarnate? And for me and for
Almah, what possible hope could there be? What fate might they have
in reserve for us? Of what avail was all this profound respect, this
incessant desire to please, this attention to our slightest wish, this
comfort and luxury and splendor, this freedom of speech and action?
Was it anything better than a mockery? Might it not be the shallow
kindness of the priest to the victim reserved for the sacrifice? Was
it, after all, in any degree better than the kindness of the cannibal
savages on those drear outer shores who received us with such
hospitality, but only that they might destroy us at last? Might they
not all belong to the same race, dwelling as they did in caverns,
shunning the sunlight, and blending kindness with cruelty? It was an
awful thought!
Yet I had one consolation. Almah was with me, and so long as she was
spared to me I could endure this life. I tried for her sake to resist
the feelings that were coming over me. I saw that she too was a prey
to ever-deepening sadness. She felt as I did, and this despair of soul
might wreck her young life if there were no alleviation. And so I
sought to alleviate her distress and to banish her sadness. The songs
of these people had much impressed me; and one day, as I talked about
this with Almah, she brought forth a musical instrument of peculiar
shape, which was not unlike a guitar, though the shape was square and
there were a dozen strings. Upon this she played, singing at the same