days," was the reply.

For the buffalo, the hide of which was to be the prisoner's death-wrap,
was in readiness the moment the steamer arrived, and ten minutes after
the signal was hoisted, the creature was killed, the hide stripped off,
and the prisoner sewn up in it, only his head being left free.

Then he was carried to a heated room, so that the hide should contract
quickly. From there he was taken to the fountain, where his eyelids were
cut off, and then he was laid upon the ground, his mouth just within a
few inches of a spray from the fountain.

And the Viceroy came, saw, approved, and smiled, and assigned to Kwang
the honoured post of watching his hated enemy die under slow and
agonising torture. To attract the flies, honeyed water was applied to
the prisoner's shaven head and face. And the guards, now and then as his
thirst increased, offered him brine to drink.

"He is still alive," the brutal-faced Tartar officer said genially, as
he touched one of the dreadful eyeballs, and the poor, tortured
creature's lips moved slightly.

Sick at heart and almost overcome with horror, Captain Carpenter, with
quickened footsteps, passed through the cordon of guards, and followed
his guide from the dreadful spot.

In a few minutes he was without the wall, and a sigh of relief broke
from him as he set out towards the river.

A CRUISE IN THE SOUTH SEAS

(HINTS TO INTENDING TRAVELLERS)

_A Cruise in the South Seas_

(HINTS TO INTENDING TRAVELLERS)

The traveller who makes a hurried trip in an excursion steamer through
the Cook, Society, Samoan, or Tongan Islands has but little opportunity
of seeing anything of the social life of the natives, or getting either
fishing or shooting; for it is but rarely that the vessel remains for
more than forty-eight hours at any of the ports visited. Personally, if
I wanted to have an enjoyable cruise among the various island groups in
the South Pacific I should avoid the "excursion" steamer as I would the
plague. In the first place, one sees next to nothing for his passage
money if he fatuously takes a ticket in either Sydney or New Zealand for
"a round trip to Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, and back." Certainly, he will
enjoy the sea voyage, for in the Australasian winter months the weather
in the South Seas is never very hot, and cloudless skies and a smooth
sea may almost be relied upon from April until the end of July. At such
places as Nukualofa, the little capital of