d the organisation known as _juramentados_.

One of the characteristic qualities of the Malays is their contempt of
death. They have transmitted it with their blood to the Polynesians, who
see in it only one of the multiple phenomena and not the supreme act of
existence, and witness it or submit to it with profound indifference.
Travellers have often seen a Canaque stretch his body on a mat, while in
perfect health, and without any symptom of disease whatever, and there
wait patiently for the end, convinced that it is near, and refuse all
nourishment and die without any apparent suffering. His relatives say of
him, "He feels he is going to die," and the imaginary patient dies, his
mind possessed by some illusion, some superstitious idea, some invisible
wound through which life escapes. When to this absolute indifference to
death is united Mussulman fanaticism, which gives to the believer a
glimpse of the gates of a paradise where the abnormally excited senses
revel in endless and numberless enjoyments, a longing for extinction takes
hold of him and throws him like a wild beast on his enemies; he stabs them
and gladly invites their daggers in return. The _juramentado_ kills for
the sake of killing, and being killed, and so winning, in exchange for a
life of privation and suffering, the voluptuous existence promised by
Mahomet to his followers.

The laws of Sulu make the bankrupt debtor the slave of his creditor, and
not only the man himself, but his family also are enslaved. To free them
there is only one means left to the husband, the sacrifice of his life.
Reduced to this extremity he does not hesitate, he takes the formidable
oath. From that time forward he is enrolled in the ranks of the
_juramentados_, and has nothing to do but await the hour when the will of
his superior shall let him loose upon the Christians. Meanwhile the
_panditas_, or priests, subject him to a system of enthusiastic excitement
that will turn him into a wild beast of the most formidable kind. They
madden his already disordered brain, they make still more supple his oily
limbs, until they have the strength of steel and the nervous force of the
tiger or panther. They sing to him their rhythmic impassioned chants,
which show to his entranced vision the radiant smiles of intoxicating
houris. In the shadow of the lofty forests, broken by the gleam of the
moonlight, they evoke the burning and sensual energies of the eternally
young and beautiful comp