once more repeated it.

"How can that be?" said he at length; "how can the ceremony of
separation have any effect upon your sacrifice? The ceremony of
separation stands by itself as the sign and symbol of an additional
blessing. This new happiness of separation is a great favor, and will
make you the object of new envy and admiration; for few have been so
fortunate as you in all the history of the Kosekin. But you are the
favorite of the Kosekin now, and there is nothing that they will not
do for you."

"But we were separate before," said I, indignantly.

"That is true," said he, "in point of fact; but this ceremony makes
your separation a legal thing, and gives it the solemn sanction of
law and of religion. Among the Kosekin one cannot be considered as
a separate man until the ceremony of separation has been publicly
performed."

"I understood," said I, "that we were chosen to suffer the sacrifice
together because we were lovers, and now since you do not any longer
regard us as lovers, why do you sacrifice us?"

At this question the Chief Pauper looked at me with one of those
hungry glances of his, which showed how he thirsted for my blood, and
he smiled the smile of an evil fiend.

"Why do we sacrifice you, Atam-or?" he replied. "Why, because we honor
you both, and love you both so dearly that we are eager to give you
the greatest of all blessings, and to deny you nothing that is in our
power to bestow."

"Do you mean to sacrifice both of us?" I gasped.

"Of course."

"What! Almah too?"

"Certainly. Why should we be so cruel to the dear child as to deprive
her of so great a boon?"

At this I groaned aloud and turned away in despair.

Many joms now passed away. I grew more and more melancholy and
desperate. I thought sometimes of fighting my way out. My fire-arms
were now my chief consolation; for I had fully made up my mind not to
die quietly like a slaughtered calf, but to strike a blow for life,
and meet my death amid slain enemies. In this prospect I found some
satisfaction, and death was robbed of some of its terrors.

CHAPTER XXX

THE DAY OF SACRIFICE

At last the time came.

It was the end of the dark season. Then, as the sun rises for its
permanent course around the heavens, when the long day of six months
begins, all in the land of the Kosekin is sorrow, and the last of the
loved darkness is mourned over amid the most solemn ceremonies, and
celebrated with the most imposing sacrifi