With this increase of light I was able to see fresh details, and workers whose existence had been made evident by sound only, now came into view. Thus I could see two men engaged in working designs in repoussé on small square gold plates, and another apparently modelling some diminutive object in wax--probably one of the wax models from which gold ornaments are cast--and my attention was so much taken up by these that I did not at first notice that the two men who bore the light were followed by several other persons. Presently, however, the light-bearers halted to examine the contents of a calabash in which a slave was washing the gold-bearing deposit, and then the others came up, and I saw that all the fetish-men who had visited the cavern were present and were accompanied by three strangers. These latter at once riveted my attention. They were dressed in handsome Kumasi cloths, or _ntamas_, of silk, and carried short heavy swords in leopard-skin sheaths; but the most remarkable feature was their hair, which was worked up into close sausage-like ringlets that hung round their necks in a fringe, and gave them a singularly uncouth and forbidding appearance. I regarded these strangers with the utmost horror, for I knew that this peculiar head-dress is the official badge of the royal executioners of Ashanti, and the scene I had witnessed a few hours previously began to have a new and shocking significance. I looked round to see if I could distinguish any of the prisoners who bore on their shoulders the fatal white mark, but the light was not sufficiently strong; but even as I looked, the horrid business commenced. The executioners, evidently familiar with their duties, separated and began to examine the prisoners one by one, and as each marked victim was discovered he was led to a place some distance away from me and stood against a pier, where soon was collected quite a little party of the poor wretches who were thus entering upon the closing scene of their life’s tragedy. But my attention was soon diverted very violently from these to my own concerns, for the fetish-men, bringing one of the lights with them, came and gathered round me with a dreadful air of business, and I now perceived that one of them carried a coil of stout grass rope, while another--my old enemy in fact--held in his hand an implement, at the sight of which I grew sick with horror. It was a small iron bar, set in a wooden handle, and was flattened at the end, where it was bent over to form a sharp hook. Without a word being spoken they set to work.