Then came the slaughter of the fowls; and the mixing of the rum.
I had begun to breath more freely on my perch. But then Robert touched me on the arm.
"What's that thing on the ground?" he whispered.
I strained my eyes. The figures of the blacks obscured the view. But at last—what I saw froze my blood.
"We must save it," I said. "It's little Marie Cambon."
As I look back on the experience of the hours following, it is as if I were recalling a horrid dream.
"Robert," I whispered, "the rifles!"
We slipped to the ground, seized our little guns, and got back to our places.
The red-robed papaloi was fumbling with a rope that hung from a liana. An attendant was kneeling on the ground holding a cup to the lips of the child.
In another moment the child was swinging in the air by the rope, its head just clearing the ground. I heard it whimper in fright. The papaloi took up a knife.