"Hark!" cried Betea himself, trembling. "The gree-gree is out to-night!"
I remembered that I had been told by one of our fellow-slaves that the gree-gree was a great fetish who appeared horned like a demon, and killed all persons he came across. None dare lock their doors when the gree-gree walked, and only the King himself was invulnerable. This no doubt was another trick of the priests to frighten the superstitious natives, and at the same time wreak vengeance upon those who had offended them. Once again the notes of the horn rose weird and shrill, and died away. Then Betea, himself affrighted, turned to us saying:
"Fly! fly for your lives. If the gree-gree catches you you will be struck upon the brow. His arm deals death everywhere."
In a moment all took to their heels, including the royal Ocra, but Omar, grasping my arm, whispered excitedly:
"Stay. We may now escape."
As the words left his lips we caught sight of a weird black figure dressed in long coarse grass, with rams' horns upon his head, his face whitened and a second pair of eyes painted over his own. In his hand gleamed a long bright knife, while at his side was suspended a freshly-severed human arm and hand. Yelling and leaping like a veritable demon, he suddenly noticed the flying figures of our fellow-slaves, and halting a moment, dashed after them, leaving us alone.
"He will return here, so we must hide," Omar said quickly, and glancing round, we both saw at the end of the dark ghostly avenue of fetish-trees an oblong windowless mud building with a high-pitched triple grass thatched roof. Running towards it we managed to wrench off the padlock from the door and enter. It was, we discovered, the reputed sepulchre of the Ashanti kings. Without, it was guarded by all sorts of fetish-charms, extraordinary odds and ends, animals' claws, broken pottery, scraps of tin, bits of wood, stones and human bones. Within, by the aid of a lamp we found burning were revealed several great coffers clamped with copper and iron, each resting upon two big stools of carved cotton-wood. Jars and vases filled with water and wine, braziers full of sweet-smelling leaves, and plates of food were placed beside each, offerings for the use of the dead.
Omar told me that when an Ashanti king died, he was buried in an ordinary coffin for a time, but afterwards the body was invariably disinterred, and the joints of the skeleton articulated with gold bands and wire. It was then placed, doubled up, in one of these spacious coffers—fully four feet long by two feet wide and deep—and the other skeletons were attendants, slaughtered and sent to the land of Shades to wait on the monarch's ghost.
"Possibly," I said, "much of the ghostly grimness and worked-up horrors about this place are cunningly devised, not only to protect the Royal tombs from being plundered by the superstitious natives, but to help to safeguard the State treasures concealed in yonder coffins."
"Yes," he said. "In this priest-ridden country all the superstition is heaped up for their benefit and profit. But we must get out of here before dawn, run past the gree-gree if he is about, and make a dash for the open forest. It is our only chance of escape, for at dawn the priests will come again to watch beside the tombs, and if discovered we are certain to be skewered through the mouth, dragged before Prempeh and hacked to pieces by the criminal executioner."