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Against a background of heavy breathing a few individual hold long monologues. Then the chorus begins to sing, and immediately all become quiet, entirely recovered from their trance.

The old Dewa is borne on men's shoulders through the gateway into another court and lifted on to a high ball. A few men group themselves below the bed on which she sits sideways fanning. The gamelan is brought and a great crowd forms below the temple gate. Women carrying offering-bowls kneel or stand with them beside the Dewa's bed, then break into a mendet and dance away.

Suddenly there is a group of old men with spears, and a moments great excitement, shouting, and clapping of hands. A very brief Biasa," with lower spears as if really fighting; then the spears have disappeared, and the old men are krissing themselves before the Dewa.

This also was very brief, and the main crowd went trooping out of the temple with spears and banners, while the Dewa was carried back through the high gateway into the inner court and lifted again on to her original high seat. A row of men on the ground below, a bigger group be ore the offerings, sing and pray, clapping their hands at intervals, persuading the gods with shouts and cries, sometimes almost with catcalls, to return to heaven. There is an atmosphere of hilarity, a relief from strain. Men have become normal human beings again.

It had poured with rain all night and when we went up to Sindoe at 7 a.m. the temple courts were a series of lakes and it seemed impossible that any feast could be held. But gradually a few small islands emerged, and on each sat or knelt a group en-gaged in prayer or offering, like the souls saved from the Ark or the survivors of a shipwreck. (On one of these islands (Goesti Raka danced the Kebyar he should have danced the night before.) The tide receded; an old woman led a Mendet with a priest, an orange sash bound over her black kain.

One by one, through the long hours, the dancers appeared and joined in a Gabor or Mendet. Again and again we were told that the kris-dance was imminent, that the Redjang must begin. Then suddenly, just before midday, the head of the orchestra fell into trance, and his fingers strayed aimlessly over the metals of his instrument. A kris was pulled out of the roof and given to him. Soon he was dancing wildly in the mask of Barong (a minor manifestation of the supreme witch Rangda). The kris in his hand was bent in two in a moment, but could only be straightened again by the whole strength of a man leaning on it. Another man fell violently into trance, and had to be forcibly lifted into the Barong's front legs. A third was led off up the steps of the high gateway and reappeared presently in the mask of Rangda herself.

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