It was a face he knew, for it was that of the dead chief's wife; and as the missionary closed his eyes to shut out the horrid vision, the hag, seeing he had again become conscious, uttered a piercing yell, and dashed into the middle of the council ring, chattering in a shrill and parrot-like voice. The missionary's eyes remained closed, for he felt his position was hopeless, and what at this moment grieved him more was, that by his negligent watch he had sacrificed his friend. If he had been struck down and made prisoner with his rifle in his hand and wide awake, what chance was there for the sleeping soldier? He knew he should, after the fashion of this tribe, be tortured; he prayed for firmness to meet his doom, but he thought with agony of what had been his comrade's fate during the hours he himself lay insensible and apparently dead. A rude stroke from the sharp point of an Amatonga spear roused him, and in obedience to the command he endeavoured to struggle to his feet. Unable to effect this, two of his captors roughly seized him, dragging him up. The dawn was just lighting up the scene, as he glanced round. There lay the embers of the fire scattered about the clearing; there lay the soldier's knapsack, and there, near it, with an ox hide thrown over it, something which took, under its coverings, the shape of a human form. There was no mistaking it. The missionary's eyes filled with tears, and a convulsive sob heaved his breast, as he looked on all that was left of the man who, in his dead sleep, had trusted to his friend's vigilance. The Amatongas seemed to have no time to lose, for hardly giving their prisoner space to realise what was passing around, they hurried him along through the bush, retracing their path until the whole group reached the foot of the Baramuana hill, where the distribution of the rifles had taken place the day before. "My presentiment of evil did not deceive me," muttered Wyzinski; "fool, triple fool as I was not to profit by it, and yonder," thought he, as his eyes followed the course of the river, and the brick walls of the fort met his gaze, just tipped by the first rays of the sun, "yonder lay safety." Grinning, laughing, and chattering, the circle of Amatonga braves drew round him. Their prisoner was thrown to the ground and his feet bound with the palmyra rope; the woman fiend, her passion lending her strength, hauling at one end of the rough cord until it literally cut into the flesh. A stake was driven into the ground at the foot of the rock, and then the missionary knew his doom was, like Luji's, death by fire. Next the whole band dispersed, going into the forest, and returning by twos and threes, laden with brush as dry as tinder. Quickly the semicircle of boughs and long grass grew round the stake, while close to the prisoner's head sat the fiend-like woman, spitting out her rage, heaping imprecations on his head, and occasionally breaking out into a slow chant or death song.