a
state of panic, and unless a stop were put to the proceedings soon,
there was no telling what the end might be. It seemed that during
the night a number of children had been murdered secretly. Their
mutilated bodies had been left at morning at the gates of their
respective dwellings. These murders had been going on for several
days, and though the houses had been guarded by a man armed with a
_campilan_ at night, the children would be mysteriously missing in the
morning. It was evidently, said the priest, the work of devils. A big
hand had been seen to snatch one of the children from its parent's
arms; and under the houses of those afflicted could be seen a weird
fire glowing in the dead of night.

The people claimed the murderer was none else than the big man of the
woods, whose footprints, like the impressions of a cocoanut-shell, had
been discovered in the soft ground near the border of the forest. There
was a crazy prophet living in a tree, and he had seen the wife of
the big man, half black, half white, wandering near the territory of
the lake. The prophet had also seen a star fall from the sky, and
he had followed it to see where it had struck the earth. He found
there a huge stone, which, as he looked upon it, changed to a wild
hog. Then the wild hog had vanished, and a flock of birds had risen
from the ground. In place of the rock, a stone hand now appeared, and
breaking off a finger of it, the prophet had discovered that, when
burnt, its fumes had power to put the whole community to sleep. In
this way had the big man of the woods been able to defy the guards
and to assassinate the children at his will.

The doctor, thinking that these deeds had been performed by
somebody impelled by lust--the lust of seeing blood and quivering
flesh--determined to investigate. Suspicion pointed to the crazy
prophet, and the guards directed us to his impossible abode. The
prophet was accused directly of the crime, and, being convinced
that he was found out by the white man's magic, he confessed. The
datto sentenced him to be beheaded, and seemed disappointed when
we would not stay to see this operation. He even offered to turn
the victim loose among the crowd, and let them strike him down with
krisses. Had we desired, we could have had the places of honor in
the line, and used the datto's finest weapons. The people, he said,
were puzzled at our lack of interest, for the occasion would have
been a sort of festival for them.