er was led
down the slope.

"Now you can look," said a mocking voice, and the turban was whipped
aside.

Jack gave a cry of horror. He could not help it. He had meant to
restrain all signs of feeling, but this was too much. He had been
placed so that he stood almost breast to breast with the most dreadful
and grisly horror that the mind of man could conceive. He looked upon
the horrible, dry, shrivelled mummy of something which had been a man.
The shape of the villager hung there in the bonds, but it was a mere
framework of bones, upon which hung wrinkled brown folds of shrivelled
skin. The haunting terror of the vision was beyond all description.

Jack tried to speak, to ask what had done this fearful thing. But his
dried tongue refused its office; it clung to the roof of his mouth.

The half-caste at his shoulder now broke into a chuckling laugh.

"He looks pretty, does he not?" said Saya Chone. "And you see nothing
has happened but what I said. He has been tied here all night." He
was silent for a few moments in order to let the awful sight sink
deeply into Jack's mind, then he went on. "You are puzzled. I can see
it in your face. What has happened to him? I will tell you. You now
see what a man looks like when _every single drop of blood has been
sucked out of his body_."

The half-caste paused a little, then laughed gaily. "It is having a
better effect on you than I should have hoped for, my young friend.
You look sick with horror. But even through your disgust I see a
glimmer of wonder as to the manner in which it is done. Simply enough,
I assure you. This swamp is famous throughout the valley for the
immense size and virulence of the mosquitoes which breed in it. With
the fall of dusk they pour from its recesses in vast swarms, and
fasten on man or beast or any creature into whose skin they may drive
their stings, and from whose body they may suck its blood. Here has
been a feast royal for them."

He waved his hand towards the dry, rattling, shrivelled remnants of
humanity, fastened to the cross, and Jack understood the awful, the
sickening cruelty of this exquisite torture.

"It is a slow death, but terribly sure," went on the half-caste. "As
one gorged horde drop off, be certain that a thousand hungry swarms
hover round, eager to fill the empty places, and taste also of the
feast. Think of it to-day, think of it well."

He waved his hand and the Kachins marched away up the hill, leading
Jack with th