It was clear, owing to the nature of the wounds, that no leopard had killed the boy; and, faced with this fact and his admission of the night before, he gave an account of the murder and the names of the persons concerned in it. As many of these persons as could then be found were forthwith taken into custody, the others were subsequently arrested, and after a preliminary examination before the District Commissioner all were committed for trial. The chief testimony against the accused was that of two accomplices who had turned informers. These men confessed to being members of the Human Leopard Society and as having been present at the murders of several victims of the Society. They gave evidence to the effect that all the accused bore the mark of the Leopard Society. The mark on each of the accused was pointed out during the hearing of the case, but although there were certain peculiarities about the mark, and although its position on the person of each of the accused was in most instances approximately the same, yet, owing to the fact that the majority of them had other marks, similar in shape and colour, some doubt existed as to whether the marks pointed out were really the marks received on initiation into the Society. After hearing the evidence, no one could doubt that a murder had been committed, and that that murder had been committed by members of the Human Leopard Society. Their plans miscarried, they were disturbed at their work by the cries of the occupants of the house; the actual murderers finished their work, but those deputed to carry away the body failed, the uninitiated in the village awakened, and saw what had happened, and it was too late to remove the body. The question then followed as to whether the persons charged were those who had actually committed or who had taken part in the murder. The evidence of the accomplices was strong, but the chief difficulty in regard to the case for the Crown was to obtain corroboration of the evidence of these accomplices. In cases of this sort where the principal men are bound together by the bonds of guilt as well as of secrecy, where the victim is provided by the head of the family, who, instead of ferreting out the crime, uses all his influence to have the matter hushed up, and where the whole people cower down in dread of the terrible vengeance threatened by the awe-inspiring Borfima, it is not to be wondered at that it is exceptional to be able to procure independent evidence. The relatives, even the mother of the victim, will not come forward willingly, and when such witnesses are forced to give evidence they will only say what they think is non-committal, and from that they will not budge. They look upon the “medicine” as being responsible, and hold the view that the members of the Society are forced into killing a victim in order to “feed” the Borfima.