forward. The cave swam before my eyes, heads were multiplied
giddily, and I was only dimly conscious when he rose to return.

Nothing would have made me advance, had I not feared Laputa less than
my neighbours. They might rend me to pieces, but to him the oath was
inviolable. I staggered crazily to my feet, and shambled forwards. My
eye was fixed on the ivory box, and it seemed to dance before me and
retreat.

Suddenly I heard a voice--the voice of Henriques--cry, 'By God, a spy!'
I felt my throat caught, but I was beyond resisting.

It was released, and I was pinned by the arms. I must have stood
vacantly, with a foolish smile, while unchained fury raged round me. I
seemed to hear Laputa's voice saying, 'It is the storekeeper.' His
face was all that I could see, and it was unperturbed. There was a
mocking ghost of a smile about his lips.

Myriad hands seemed to grip me and crush my breath, but above the
clamour I heard a fierce word of command. After that I fainted.

CHAPTER XII

CAPTAIN ARCOLL SENDS A MESSAGE

I once read--I think in some Latin writer--the story of a man who was
crushed to a jelly by the mere repeated touch of many thousand hands.
His murderers were not harsh, but an infinite repetition of the
gentlest handling meant death. I do not suppose that I was very
brutally manhandled in the cave. I was trussed up tight and carried out
to the open, and left in the care of the guards. But when my senses
returned I felt as if I had been cruelly beaten in every part. The
raw-hide bonds chafed my wrists and ankle and shoulders, but they were
the least part of my aches. To be handled by a multitude of Kaffirs is
like being shaken by some wild animal. Their skins are insensible to
pain, and I have seen a Zulu stand on a piece of red-hot iron without
noticing it till he was warned by the smell of burning hide. Anyhow,
after I had been bound by Kaffir hands and tossed on Kaffir shoulders,
I felt as if I had been in a scrimmage of mad bulls. I found myself
lying looking up at the moon. It was the edge of the bush, and all
around was the stir of the army getting ready for the road. You know
how a native babbles and chatters over any work he has to do. It says
much for Laputa's iron hand that now everything was done in silence. I
heard the nickering of horses and the jolt of carts as they turned from
the bush into the path. There was the sound of hurried whispering, and
now and then a shar