uld fain comprehend what was amiss. Then Warley,
to whom all seemed instinctively to look, offered up a simple, but
fervent petition, that God would be pleased to succour them, if He saw
fit, in their present strait; but if it was His pleasure to take them
from the world, He would pardon the sins of their past lives, strengthen
them to meet their doom bravely, and receive them to Himself. He
concluded with the Lord's Prayer, in which they all joined fervently,
and then relapsed into silence; which was not broken until Leshoo
returned to warn them that all was in readiness.

"You, boy," he said, turning to Frank, "you die first. Umboo shoot you
through the heart with arrow. Then you he kill with club," addressing
Warley. "You he throw assegai at," nodding to Nick. "Medicine-man, he
come last. Umboo shoot him dead with own gun! Medicine-man never shoot
better himself. Come now; chief ready."

The prisoners obeyed in silence. A sharper thrill shot through Frank's
bosom as he heard he was to be the first to suffer, but the next instant
it was succeeded by a feeling of thankfulness that he would not witness
the murder of his friends.

"Good-bye, dear old Lion," he said, stooping over the dog, and stroking
the smooth head which looked up with such sad wonder into his face; "I
hope they'll treat you kindly. Charles," he added, "let us say good-bye
to one another here. I shouldn't like to do it before all these
fellows."

"Good-bye, Frank," said Lavie, throwing his arms round the lad's neck,
and kissing him on the forehead. "Good-bye, and God bless you. We will
pray for each other to the last."

"I will follow you now," said Wilmore, when he had taken leave in like
fashion of the other two. "The sooner this is over the better."

He passed out of the hut with a firm step, looking without flinching on
the cruel preparations without. Whatever sinkings of heart he might
have felt when his doom was first made known to him, they had all
vanished now. He was a noble English boy, reared in all manly ways, and
instructed by a thousand brave examples. His life, if not faultless,
had been pure; his conscience void of any deep offence; and for the rest
he trusted in the God who had bade him trust in Him. The same heroism
which the striplings of our race showed on the deck of the _Birkenhead_,
and in the wild scenes of the Indian mutiny, which upbore young Herbert,
the high-born and gently nurtured, in his dread ord