istance; and holding this in view, he the more willingly agreed to
accompany us to the gorilla country, intending first to make our
acquaintance, and afterwards to turn us to account in furthering his
plans. All this we learned long afterwards. At the period of which I
am now writing, we were profoundly ignorant of everything save the fact
that Okandaga was his affianced bride, and that the poor fellow was now
almost beside himself with horror because the fetishman had condemned
her, among others, to drink the poisoned cup.

This drinking of the poisoned cup is an ordeal through which the unhappy
victims to whom suspicion has been attached are compelled to pass. Each
one drinks the poison, and several executioners stand by, with heavy
knives, to watch the result. If the poison acts so as to cause the
supposed criminal to fall down, he is hacked in pieces instantly; but
if, through unusual strength or peculiarity of constitution, he is
enabled to resist the effects of the poison, his life is spared, and he
is declared innocent.

Jack and Peterkin and I seized our weapons, and hurrying out, followed
our guide to the spot where this terrible tragedy was enacting.

"Don't fear, Mak," said Peterkin, as we ran along; "we'll save her
somehow. I'm certain of that."

The negro made no reply, but I observed a more hopeful expression on his
countenance after the remark. He evidently had immense faith in
Peterkin; which I must say was more than I had, for when I considered
our small numbers, my hope of influencing savages was very slight.

The scene that met our eyes was indescribably horrible. In the centre
of a dense circle of negroes, who had wrought themselves up to a pitch
of ferocity that caused them to look more like wild beasts than men,
stood the king, and beside him the doctor or fetishman. This latter was
ornamented with a towering headdress of feathers. His face was painted
white, which had the effect of imparting to him an infinitely more
hideous and ghastly aspect than is produced in the white man when he is
painted black. A stripe of red passed round his head, and another down
his forehead and nose. His naked body was decked with sundry fantastic
ornaments, and altogether he looked more like a fiend than I had
believed it possible for man to appear.

The ground all round him was saturated with blood and strewn with arms,
fingers, cleft skulls, and masses of flesh that had been hewn from the
victims w