He assured me that he had all his life cultivated the loftiest feelings of love to others. His greatest happiness consisted in doing good to others, especially in killing them. The blessing of death, being the greatest of all blessings, was the one which he loved best to bestow upon others; and the more he loved his fellow-creatures the more he wished to give them this blessing. "You," said he, "are particularly dear to me, and I should rather give to you the blessing of death than to any other human being. I love you, Atam-or, and I long to kill you at this moment."
"You had better not try it," said I, grimly.
He shook his head despondingly.
"Oh no," said he; "it is against the law. I must not do it till the time comes."
"Do you kill many?" I asked.
"It is my pleasing and glorious office," he replied, "to kill more than any other; for, you must know, I am the Sar Tabakin" (chief of the executioners).
The Chief Pauper's love of death had grown to be an all-absorbing passion. He longed to give death to all. As with us there are certain philanthropists who have a mania for doing good, so here the pauper class had a mania for doing what they considered good in this way. The Chief Pauper was a sort of Kosekin Howard or Peabody, and was regarded by all with boundless reverence. To me, however, he was an object of never-ending hate, abhorrence, and loathing; and, added to this, was the thought that there might be here some equally hideous female—someone like the nightmare hag of the outer sea—a torment and a horror to Almah.