-the wickedness bubbles up in you like a fountain in the
spring-time. Were it not for me, generations since had ye ceased to be,
for of your own evil way had ye destroyed each other. And now, because
ye have done this thing, because ye have striven to put these men, my
guests, to death, and yet more because ye have dared to disobey my word,
this is the doom that I doom you to. That ye be taken to the cave of
torture,[*] and given over to the tormentors, and that on the going down
of to-morrow's sun those of you who yet remain alive be slain, even as
ye would have slain the servant of this my guest."

[*] "The cave of torture." I afterwards saw this dreadful
place, also a legacy from the prehistoric people who lived
in Kor. The only objects in the cave itself were slabs of
rock arranged in various positions to facilitate the
operations of the torturers. Many of these slabs, which were
of a porous stone, were stained quite dark with the blood of
ancient victims that had soaked into them. Also in the
centre of the room was a place for a furnace, with a cavity
wherein to heat the historic pot. But the most dreadful
thing about the cave was that over each slab was a
sculptured illustration of the appropriate torture being
applied. These sculptures were so awful that I will not
harrow the reader by attempting a description of them.--L.
H. H.

She ceased, and a faint murmur of horror ran round the cave. As for the
victims, as soon as they realised the full hideousness of their doom,
their stoicism forsook them, and they flung themselves down upon the
ground, and wept and implored for mercy in a way that was dreadful to
behold. I, too, turned to Ayesha, and begged her to spare them, or at
least to mete out their fate in some less awful way. But she was hard as
adamant about it.

"My Holly," she said, again speaking in Greek, which, to tell the truth,
although I have always been considered a better scholar of the language
than most men, I found it rather difficult to follow, chiefly because of
the change in the fall of the accent. Ayesha, of course, talked with
the accent of her contemporaries, whereas we have only tradition and the
modern accent to guide us as to the exact pronunciation. "My Holly, it
cannot be. Were I to show mercy to those wolves, your lives would not be
safe among this people for a day. Thou knowest them not. They are tigers
to lap blo