“No, no, boy,” he said, turning away with a wave of his hand, as if to dismiss the subject finally, “you shall not die. It is a delusion. You deceive yourself. Go. Leave me!”
Soa obeyed, and went straight to the apartment of Prince Rakota to relate to that fast friend and comrade his recent adventures, and consult with him about the dark cloud that threatened to burst in persecution over the unhappy land.
Note 1. A Bible of the kind here described may now be seen in the Museum of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 146 Queen Victoria Street, London, just as it was dug up out of the earth, where it had been buried by christian natives who probably perished in the persecutions. The New Testament bears the date of 1830, the Old Testament that of 1835.
Chapter Sixteen.
In Prison—Effects of a First Sight of Torture.
A new day had begun, cattle were lowing on the distant plain, and birds were chirping their matutinal songs in bush and tree when Mark Breezy, John Hockins, and James Ginger—alias Ebony—awoke from their uneasy rest on the prison floor and sat up with their backs against the wall. Their chains rattled sharply as they did so.
“Well now,” said Hockins, gasping forth his morning yawn in spite of circumstances, “I’ve many a time read and heard it of other folk, but I never did think I should live to hear my own chains rattle.”