n back, and at a signal
from the King the executions recommenced, until the smell of blood grew
sickening, and the awful scene caused me to shake like an aspen.

I knew that nothing could save me from the hands of these demoniacal
whitewashed executioners, and in a few moments I, a slave purchased like
an ox for the slaughter, would be borne down over the bowl and
decapitated.

I looked at Omar. His face was pale, but his lips were tightly set,
although there was an expression of utter hopelessness upon his
countenance.

The horror of that moment held me breathless.

CHAPTER XII.

IN THE SACRED GROVE.

ONE by one the slaves of the gang in which we had travelled were dragged
forward, held over the execution bowl and sent as messengers to
spirit-land, until it came to Omar's turn. In a second two white-faced
demons with keen swords seized him, and despite the cry for mercy that
escaped his lips, he was rushed forward, the frenzied executioners
flinging him down unceremoniously, and bending his head over the warm
blood with which the basin was now filled to overflowing.

At that instant, as the chief executioner strode forward and held his
dripping blade uplifted, ready to strike, the King raised his hand to
command silence, and the hideously-dressed official paused in wonder, his
sword poised in air.

Betea, the Ocra, bending low, was whispering to the King, when the latter
suddenly took the nut from his mouth and said:

"So it is upon Omar, son of my enemy the Naya of Mo, that my eyes rest!
Let him stand forth with his white companion."

Obedient to the command of the King, the executioners allowed Omar to
rise, and in a few moments we both stood before the royal stool.

"How came you here?" asked Prempeh, scowling.

"I was captured and sold as slave to the Arab dealers," he answered,
drawing himself up with that princely air he always assumed in moments of
danger.

"And your white companion? How is it he is in our capital?"

"I have been to the land of the white men across the sea, and he returned
as my friend," Omar replied. "We were travelling homeward to Mo when by
treachery I was entrapped."

"By whom?"

"By Samory."

Across Prempeh's evil face there spread a sickly smile. He was an ally of
the great Mohammedan chief, and saw at once that Samory had sold the son
of their mutual enemy into slavery.

"Your queen-mother," he said, "has times without number sent her armed
hordes over the