“Yes,” answered the colonel, “and a villainous, hang-dog looking fellow he is, too—a member of some of those wandering tribes of beggars who infest our part of the country—and no mercy will be shown to him.”
Frederick instantly realized that it was necessary for his safety that he should remain at least some days longer at Baroda, so as not to arouse, by his sudden departure, suspicions which had, so luckily for him, taken another direction, and, coolly finishing his toilet, he accompanied the colonel to a dinner party at the bungalow of the English political resident.
Three days afterward Frederick received an invitation from the Guicowar to be present at the execution of the widow's murderer, who was condemned to undergo the punishment of “death by the elephant.”
EXECUTION BY ELEPHANT.
This punishment is one of the most frightful that can possibly be imagined. The culprit, secured hand and foot, is fastened to the elephant's hind leg by a long cord passed round his waist. The latter is urged into a rapid trot through the streets of the city, and every step gives the cord a violent jerk which makes the body of the condemned wretch bound on the pavement. On arriving at the place of execution he is released, and by a refinement of cruelty a glass of water is given to him. Then when he has sufficiently recovered to feel the throes of death his head is placed upon a stone block, and the elephant executioner is made to crush it beneath his enormous foot.
Up to this juncture Frederick, though very pale, had remained standing behind the Guicowar's chair, his eyes intently fixed on the horrible scene which was being enacted before his eyes. But at the moment when the head of the poor innocent man was being crushed to atoms under the dull thud of the monster's foot he uttered a cry of horror and sank to the ground in a dead faint.