The wives who were destined to perish had been selected by the queen herself and were all in holiday-attire. One of the victims, who bore the title of second wife, was forced down upon her hands and knees in the grave, in order to form a resting-place for the effigy, as she had been accustomed to do for the living sovereign; the third wife had to sustain the image in an upright position, and the fourth lay down at its feet to make a footstool.
In front of the effigy, at the end of the grave, a huge stake, painted red, was planted firmly in the earth. Bound to this stake, his body half naked, exhibiting marks of the
[Illustration: Friendless and hopeless.]
tortures which by Negoro's orders he had already undergone, friendless and hopeless, was Dick Sands!
The time, however, for opening the flood-gate had not yet arrived. First of all, at a sign from the queen, the fourth wife, forming the royal footstool had her throat cut by an executioner, her blood streaming into the grave. This barbarous deed was the commencement of a most frightful butchery. One after another, fifty slaves fell beneath the slaughterous knife, until the river-bed was a very cataract of blood. For half an hour the shrieks of the victims mingled with the imprecations of their murderers, without evoking one single expression of horror or sympathy from the gazing crowd around.
At a second signal from the queen, the barrier, which retained the water above, was opened. By a refinement of cruelty the torrent was not admitted suddenly to the grave, but allowed to trickle gradually in.
The first to be drowned were the slaves that carpeted the bottom of the trench, their frightful struggles bearing witness to the slow death that was overpowering them. Dick was immersed to his knees, but he could be seen making what might seem one last frantic effort to burst his bonds.
Steadily rose the water; the stream resumed its proper course; the last head disappeared beneath its surface, and soon there remained nothing to indicate that in the depth below there was a tomb where a hundred victims had been sacrificed to the memory 0f the King of Kazonndé.
Painful as they are to describe, it is impossible to ignore the reality of such scenes.