goad my tormentors to such a state of fury and exasperation as should
provoke them to finish me off quickly.

All being now ready, the gate in the palisade was thrown open, a conch-
shell was blown, and the waiting inhabitants began to pour into the
enclosure with all the eagerness and excitement of an audience crowding
into the unreserved portions of a theatre, and in a very short time the
great square was full, the front ranks pressing close up to a cordon of
armed guards that had been drawn round the circle of posts. Then, while
the air vibrated with the hum and murmur of many excited tongues, shouts
and a disturbance in the direction of the palace proclaimed the approach
of the king and his household, and presently the entire party, numbering
some three hundred, passed in and made their way to a kind of grand-
stand, from which an admirable view of all the proceedings was to be
obtained. I looked for Ama, but could not see her; Gouroo, however, was
present and favoured me with a smile of malicious triumph. Banda
himself took not the slightest notice of my presence.

No sooner were the royal party seated than a commotion on the opposite
side of the square portended another arrival; and in a few minutes,
through a narrow lane that had been formed in the dense mass of people,
Mafuta and his myrmidons, to the number of nearly a hundred, came
leaping and bounding into the open space beneath the crucifixion tree.
Daubed all over their naked bodies with black, white, and red paint,
with their hair gathered into a knot on the crown of the head, and
decorated with long feathers, strings of big beads, and long strips of
scarlet cloth--obtained from goodness knows where--with necklaces of
birds' and animals' claws about their necks, and girdles of animals'
entrails round their waists, they presented as hideous and revolting a
picture as can possibly be imagined as they went careering madly round
the circle, each man waving a long spear over his head. Now I noticed a
curiously subdued but distinct commotion among the spectators of the
front rank, each of whom seemed anxious to surrender his apparently
advantageous position to whomsoever might be willing to accept it. But,
singularly enough, no one seemed desirous to avail himself of his
neighbour's generosity; and the reason soon became apparent; for
presently, in the midst of their wild bounding round the inner edge of
the tightly packed mass of spectators, they came to a