Many a gallant fellow lay bleeding on the flowery turf; Ormsby was stretched beside one of the pools, the blood poured from an assegai-wound in his side; his soft shining hair was matted with gore from another in the temple. A horrible object presented itself to the troops as they faced about, carrying their wounded up the slope; it was the figure of a white man bound with thongs to the oak, round which the faggots had been piled, but happily not ignited. The arms were stretched out, and fastened to two wide-spreading branches of the noble tree; the feet rested on the sticks, which it had been intended should blaze beneath them, and there were the marks of heavy blows upon the fine athletic limbs; the face was distorted, the eyes glared in their sockets, and the body was transpierced by assegais. The Kafirs, athirst for blood, afraid to attack the camps, had gone roaming about for days seeking whom they might devour. Here, in this lovely and sequestered spot, a group of Gaikas had halted with their cattle; a solitary white man suddenly appeared among them--he was alone, unarmed--miserable wretch that he was!--he was in search of freedom in the beautiful desert. They rushed upon him, seized him, and, pinioning his arms, fastened him to the tree, and sat down before him to deliberate how he should die by their ruthless hands. Reader, he understood their language! He heard them, and was powerless. They were all of one opinion.-- He should be killed by slow torture! But how? And then they talked together, and the victim, for the first time in his life, called on God to have mercy upon him, the sinner. And Zoonah was there--Zoonah, who, in early youth, had been fostered and kindly trained by white men, and taught who God was, and how all the beautiful and pleasant gifts of earth came from God--and Zoonah mocked him, and cried aloud-- "Is your God black or white?" Then all was still again, and it was decided how he should die; and they took their assegais, and drew a red circle round his throat, and sat down to see the beginning of their work, sharpening their weapons, and bidding the young boys take good aim at the quivering and bleeding form with their knob-kierries. Some of the women came, and looked shyly at him at first, and so went away, and danced and returned; and it was at this period of the tragic drama that a girl caught sight of a carbine in the bush above, and shrieked her warning-- "The soldiers!--the soldiers!--and the Fingo dogs!" They fled, but left their victim no chance of life from his fellow-men. Jasper Lyle was quite dead when they unbound him from the oak, down the bark of which the blood streamed from his mangled limbs. It was riven by lightning afterwards, and, till Mr Trail had it cut down, stood all white and ghastly, an unsightly memento of the convict's awful death.