.

THE PLAY.
The doomed three were driven by their murderers into the centre of the depression, within a few yards of which Hans and I were standing.
After them came the head executioner, a great brute who wore a curiously shaped leopard-skin cap--I suppose as a badge of office--and held in his hand a heavy kerry, the shaft of which was scored with many notches, each of them representing a human life.
"See, White Man," he shouted, "here is the bait which the king sends to draw the holy birds to you.

Had it not been that you needed such bait, perhaps these wizards would have escaped.

But the Black One said the little Son of George, who is named Macumazahn, needs them that he may show his magic, and therefore they must die to-day." Now, at this information I turned positively sick.

Nor did it make me feel better when the youngest of the victims, hearing the executioner's words, flung himself upon his knees, and began to implore me to spare him.