ct had come
quite up to the mark, and the fact that not a man of the tribe had dared
to stand before him, was sufficient to convince a set of superstitious
savages that he was a real devil in human guise. To have secured one of
his minor comrades, therefore, was a splendid and unlooked-for piece of
good fortune, which they resolved to make the most of by burning the
pirate alive.

Little did the wretched man think, when they conducted him to a hut in
the middle of their village and supplied him with meat and drink, that
this was a preliminary ceremony to the terrible end they purposed to
make of him. It is true he did not feel easy in his mind, for, despite
this touch of hospitality, his captors regarded him with looks of
undisguised hatred.

There was something of the feline spirit in these Raturan savages. As
the cat plays with the mouse before killing it, so did they amuse
themselves with the pirate before putting him to the final torture which
was to terminate his life.

And well was it for Rosco that they did so, for the delay thus caused
was the means of saving his life--though he did not come out of the
dread ordeal scathless.

They began with a dance--a war-dance it is to be presumed--at all events
it involved the flourishing of clubs and spears, the formation of
hideous faces, and the perpetration of frightful grimaces, with bounds
and yells enough to warrant the conclusion that the dance was not one of
peace. Richard Rosco formed the centre of that dance--the sun, as it
were, of the system round which the dusky host revolved. But he did not
join in the celebration, for he was bound firmly to a stake set up in
the ground, and could not move hand or foot.

At first the warriors of the tribe moved round the pirate in a circle,
stamping time slowly with their feet while the women and children stood
in a larger circle, marking time with hands and voices. Presently the
dance grew more furious, and ultimately attained to a pitch of wild
violence which is quite indescribable. At the height of the paroxysm, a
warrior would ever and anon dart out from the circle with whirling club,
and bring it down as if on the prisoner's skull, but would turn it aside
so deftly that it just grazed his ear and fell with a dull thud on the
ground. Other warriors made at him with their spears, which they thrust
with lightning speed at his naked breast, but checked them just as they
touched the skin.

Two or three of these