swer.

"That is the first lie," said Sapazani. Then turning to the others, "A
dog who betrays his father's house, what should be his fate?"

A roar went up--savage, vengeful, simultaneous.

"The fire! Give this dog to us, father. There is the fire all ready."

Sapazani nodded. Willing, ferocious hands were upon Sebela. He was
dragged to the glowing wood and stretched right against it, yet not
before with his only available weapons he had bitten two fingers of one
of his torturers nearly off.

"Is it warm enough, Sebela?" said the chief. "If it is, name, then, the
other man who helped thee to sell thy father's house to the whites."

The wretched victim writhed hideously in the grasp of those who held
him, indeed, so powerful were his struggles that it was all they could
do to hold him down at all. He uttered no cry, but his wet face and
rolling eyeballs and bared teeth testified to the agony he was
undergoing. The spectators, their most savage passions aroused, gazed
gloatingly on.

"Name him, name him, Sebela, that thy torments may cease," repeated
Sapazani.

"Pandulu."

The name burst forth in a tone that was half gasp, half shriek. The
agony of the wretch had become too great for the endurance of even a
barbarian. At a sign from the chief he was dragged away from the fire.

"That for the one," said the latter. "Now for the other. Name the
other, Sebela."

"There was no other, _Nkose_."

"No other? What? Was the fire not hot enough? Take him back."

But before the order could be carried out the victim decided that he
could not face further torment. Every nerve in his body was throbbing
with the agony he was undergoing.

"If I name him," he groaned, "shall I die immediately the death of the
spear instead of by fire?"

Sapazani thought a moment.

"If thou liest not--yes," he answered.

"I have the chief's promise." And he named a name. It was that wrested
from Pandulu at the point of the assegai under those same dark forest
shades.

"This time thou hast not lied, Sebela," said the chief. "Well, go."

He made a sign, and in a moment as many assegais were driven into the
body of the tortured wretch as there were of those wielding them who
could get near enough, while those who could not pressed hungrily
forward to get in their stab even after life was extinct. And it was
that, well-nigh instantaneously.

"_Ou_! The justice of our father and chief!" cried the whole band as
the