ds of the
Government.

The judge drew on the black cap, and proceeded to pass formal sentence.

The twelve prisoners before him, he said, after a long and painstaking
trial extending over several days, had been convicted of the most
heinous crime known to the law, that of murder, the penalty of which was
death. They had only been indicted for, and found guilty of one murder,
but there was ample evidence that many others had lain at their door.
This murder then, was the outcome of one of the vilest, most benighted
forms of superstition that had ever disgraced our common humanity,
whether black or white. As for urging, as one of the prisoners had
done, that such murder was part of the black man's religion--or
anybody's religion--why he could only say that such a statement was a
slander upon the honest, straightforward, native population of the
Colony, of whose good and trustworthy qualities he personally had had
many years of experience. It was a relic of the blackest and most
benighted days of past heathenism, and it was clear that a bold attempt
had been made on the part of the prisoner Ukozi, to revive and spread it
in the midst of a peaceful and law-abiding native population living
contentedly under the Queen's rule and under the Queen's laws. Once
these terrible superstitions--and their outcome of foul and mysterious
murder--took root, there was no seeing where they would end, therefore
it was providential that this wicked and horrible conspiracy against the
lives of their fellow subjects had been brought to light, and he would
especially urge, and solemnly warn, his native hearers present in court
to set their faces resolutely against anything of the kind in their
midst. Not for one moment would it be tolerated, nor would any plea of
custom, or such a travesty of the sacred name of religion, as had been
brought forward by one of the prisoners, be even so much as considered
in mitigation of the just doom meted out by the law to all who should be
found guilty of such an offence.

Sentence of death was then formally passed upon the whole dozen.

There were many influential natives among the audience in court. These,
I could see, were impressed, and in the right direction, moreover I
gathered from their comments, which I overheard as they dispersed, that
to many of them the existence of the Brotherhood of the Dew came as a
revelation. And the comments were diverse and instructive.

"_Au_!" one man remarked.