I could not sustain the horror of my situation, and when I perceived that the popular voice and the countenances of the judges had already condemned my unhappy victim, I rushed out of the court in agony.
Soon after we heard that the poor victim had expressed a desire to see my cousin.
Unable to accomplish this, he nevertheless, as a matter of principle, continued his habits of social familiarity with the old man, and thus gave him constant opportunities for perfecting the purpose to which -- poor forlorn creature that he was, and more wretched than his
victim -- the avenger had devoted himself.
Now they had tied their poor
victim to a great post near the center of the village, directly before Mbonga's hut, and here they formed a dancing, yelling circle of warriors about him, alive with flashing knives and menacing spears.
The body yielded to the currents of air, and though no murmur or groan escaped the
victim, there were instants when he grimly faced his foes, and the anguish of cold despair might be traced, through the intervening distance, in possession of his swarthy lineaments.
It remained to ascertain whether the priests were watching by the side of their
victim as assiduously as were the soldiers at the door.
His screams of rage were frightful as he dashed hither and thither, dealing terrific blows with his giant weapon, or sinking his yellow fangs into the flesh of some luckless
victim. And during it the priestess stood with poised knife above Tarzan, her eyes fixed in horror upon the maniacal thing that was dealing out death and destruction to her votaries.
Before Rokoff could drive the weapon home the chief sprang upon him and dragged him away from his intended
victim.
During this gayety, a man in the livery of the city, short of stature and robust of mien, mounted the platform and placed himself near the
victim. His name speedily circulated among the spectators.
As I was groping to remove the chain from about my
victim's neck I glanced up into the darkness to see six pairs of gleaming eyes fixed, unwinking, upon me.
He was a tall, handsome man, and when he drew himself to his full height and turned those gray eyes on the
victim of his wrath, as he did that day, he was very imposing.
He destroys birth and death, and dissipates to mist the paradox of being, until his
victim cries out, as in "The City of Dreadful Night": "Our life's a cheat, our death a black abyss." And the feet of the
victim of such dreadful intimacy take hold of the way of death.