a more than usually
violent tropical thunderstorm was brewing, although it might be some
hours yet before it would burst over the blood-stained town. Naturally,
I was very thankful that the awful day had passed over, and that its end
found me still in the land of the living; for "while there is life there
is hope," and in the course of my somewhat adventurous career I have
seen so many extraordinary escapes from apparently inevitable disaster
that the one piece of advice above all others which I would give to
everybody is "Never despair!" I can recall more than one occasion when,
if I had abandoned hope and the effort which goes with it, I should not
now have been alive to pen these words. No man can ever know what
totally unexpected happening may occur to effect his deliverance at the
very moment when fate looks blackest and most threatening. But although
I had passed through the day unscathed, so far as actual bodily injury
was concerned, it had nevertheless been a day of suffering for me,
growing ever more acute as the hours dragged wearily away, for, apart
from the feelings of horror with which I had witnessed the display of so
much unimaginable cruelty and torture, the bonds which confined me to my
post had been drawn so tightly as greatly to impede the circulation of
blood through my extremities, until by the time that the great square
was empty of its crowd of bloodthirsty revellers, the anguish had become
so great that I was almost in a fainting condition and could give but
scant attention to anything beyond the pangs that racked every nerve of
my tortured body; in fact I observed, with feelings of envy, that many
of my fellow-sufferers had already succumbed and become unconscious, if
indeed they were not dead. However, since we had been spared thus far,
I concluded that we might reasonably hope to be reprieved at least until
the next day, and I looked with impatience to be released and conveyed
back to my place of confinement until dawn should again summon me forth
to witness and, peradventure, be the victim of accumulative horrors.

But I soon discovered that even this small measure of mercy was to be
denied me; food and drink were indeed to be served out to us--in order,
as I surmised, that we might meet the ordeal in store for us with
unabated strength--but the night was to be passed, as the day had been,
secured to the sacrificial post, exposed, naked and helpless, to the
elements and to the myriad inse