ments to show that
they were preparing for action.

A group of three Lamas stood at the entrance of the tent. They were the
musicians. One held a gigantic horn, which, when blown, emitted hoarse,
thundering sounds. His companions had one a drum, the other cymbals.
Another fellow some distance away continually sounded a huge gong. From
the moment I was made to dismount the deafening sounds of the diabolical
music echoed all through the valley, and added horror to the scene.

An iron bar with a handle of wood bound in red cloth was being made
red-hot in a brazier. The Pombo, who had placed something in his mouth
in order to produce artificial foaming at the lips, and thus show his
fury, worked himself into a frenzy. A Lama handed him the implement of
torture (the _taram_), now red-hot. The Pombo seized it by the handle.

"_Ngaghi kiu meh taxon!_" (We will burn out your eyes!) cried a chorus
of Lamas.

The Pombo strode up to me, brandishing the ghastly implement. He seemed
reluctant, but the Lamas around him urged him on, lifting the man's arm
toward me.

"You have come to this country to see" (alluding to what I had stated
the previous day--_viz._, that I was a traveller and pilgrim, and had
only come to see the country). "This, then, is the punishment for you!"
and with these dreadful words the Pombo raised his arm and placed the
red-hot iron bar parallel to, and about an inch or two from, my
eyeballs, and all but touching my nose.

Instinctively I kept my eyes closed, but the heat was so intense that it
seemed as if my eyes, the left one especially, were being desiccated and
my nose scorched.

Though the time seemed interminable, I do not think that the heated bar
was before my eyes actually longer than thirty seconds or so. Yet it was
quite long enough, for, when I lifted my aching eyelids, I saw
everything as in a red mist. My left eye was frightfully painful, and
every few seconds it seemed as if something in front of it obscured its
vision. With the right eye I could still see fairly well, except that
everything, as I have said, looked red instead of its usual color. The
hot iron was then thrown down, and was frizzling on the wet ground a few
paces from me.

My position was not enviable, as I stood with my legs wide apart, with
my back, hands, and legs bleeding, and my sight injured. This amid the
deafening, maddening noise of the gong, drum, cymbals, and horn;
insulted, spat upon by the crowd, and with Ne