A few minutes elapsed, and again the forest was alive; every man had brought a woman with him.
The women were more repulsive looking than the men.
Their backs were gashed and scarred in every direction, while all over their bodies deep furrows had been plowed out of the flesh.
At a signal all began dancing. The men at every movement struck the women with their spiked bracelets, and soon the black bodies of the females were dripping with blood.
But the women made no effort to escape, but laughed heartily when they managed to escape a more than usually vicious blow from their loving husband’s spiked bracelet.
“Can’t we stop it?” asked Max.
“I am afraid not.”
“I would like to kill the savages.”
“So would I; but we can’t, and so must endure it——”
“Or run away.”