been expected,
was not less firm in her reply than her companions; but, instead of
being thrown over, she was informed that as it was not allowable to shed
the blood of one of noble birth she was to be burnt alive!

At this dreadful announcement she turned paler than before, but did not
flinch. At the same moment poor Mamba lost control of himself. He
sprang to her side, put an arm round her waist, and shouted--

"This shall not be! I, too, am a praying man. Ye shall not touch her!"

He glared fiercely round, and, for a moment, the soldiers did not dare
to approach him, although he was totally unarmed. But they sprang on
him from behind, and he was quickly overpowered by numbers. At the
command of their officer, they tore him from Ramatoa, carried him to the
cliff, and hurled him over. His head struck the ledge, and his brains
were dashed out there. Next moment he lay dead among the rocks at the
bottom.

This awful sight Ramatoa was spared, for, at the same instant, they had
dragged her away to the spot where a pile of wood had been prepared for
herself. Four stakes were fixed in the midst of the pile, as three
other Christian nobles were to be burnt along with her, one of whom was
a lady. While Ramatoa watched the preparations for her death, her
fellow-sufferers arrived--singing, as they walked, a hymn which begins
with, "When our hearts are troubled," and ends with, "Then remember us."
Ramatoa raised her voice and joined them. There was no wavering or
shrinking from the fiery ordeal. When all was ready the martyrs quietly
suffered themselves to be bound to the stakes, and, strange to say, when
the flames roared around them, the song of praise still went on, and the
voices of praise and prayer did not cease until they had culminated in
glad shouts of praise and victory before the throne of God!

We write facts just now, reader, not fiction! Men talk of the cruelty
of devils! Assuredly there is not a devil in or out of hell who can
sink to lower depths of cruelty than fallen man will sink to when left
to the unrestrained influence of that hateful thing--_sin_--from which
Jesus Christ came to deliver us, blessed be _His_ name!

It is said that while these four martyrs were being fastened to the
stakes, an immense triple-arched rainbow stretched across the heavens,
one end of which appeared to rest upon them, and that rain fell in
torrents. This so terrified many of the spectators, that they fled in
c