as to prevent any stranger from entering Mo, yet he actually assisted
yonder horde of savages to gain access to our innermost courts. He----"

"Mercy, your majesty! mercy!" implored the unhappy man, falling prone at
her feet. "I have guarded the Gate with my life always. I believed that
thy son's friends were thine also."

"Silence!" shrieked the Naya. "Let not his voice again fall upon our
ears. Let him die now, before our eyes, and let his carcase be given as
offal to the dogs. Let one hundred of his guards die also. Others who
would thwart us will thus be warned."

"Mercy!" screamed the wretched old fellow hoarsely, clasping his hands in
fervent supplication.

"Gankoma, I have spoken," cried the Great White Queen, majestically
waving her hand.

Babila, inactive by age, struggled to regain his feet, but ere he could
do so, or before Omar could interfere, the executioner had lifted his
sword with both hands. The sound of a dull blow was heard, and next
second the head of the Queen's faithful servant rolled across the
polished floor, while from the decapitated trunk the blood gushed forth
and ran in an ugly serpentine stream over the jasper slabs.

A sudden thrill of horror ran through the crowd at this summary execution
of one who had hitherto been implicitly trusted, but only for an instant
was the ghastly body allowed to remain before the eyes of Queen and
court, for half a dozen slaves had been standing in readiness with bowls
of water, and some of these rushing forward carried away the head and
body and flung it to the dogs, while others swiftly removed all traces of
the gruesome spectacle.

Little wonder therefore that the great Naya should be held in awe by all
her subjects, for in her anger she seemed capable of the most fiendish
cruelty. As in Kumassi, so also in Mo, death seemed to come quickly, and
for any paltry offence. Gankoma, executioner to the Great White Queen,
was, I afterwards learnt, continually busy obeying the royal commands,
and the rapidly increasing number of victims whose heads fell beneath his
terrible knife was causing most serious discontent.

CHAPTER XXI.

A FIGURE IN THE SHADOW.

AN hour after sundown I was seated with Omar and Kona on a mat in the
courtyard of a house not far from the gates of the palace, where
hospitality had been secretly offered us. We were discussing the
situation. Our black followers, on leaving the presence of the irate
queen, had gone out in sm