My words were wasted:  the natives seized William and forced him to his feet.  Then, while a hymn was sung, they put chains of black and white figs round our necks, and thrust into our hands pieces of cheese, figs, and certain peculiar herbs.  This formed part of what may well be called the “Ritual” of this cruel race.  May Ritualists heed my words, and turn from the errors of their ways!

Too well I knew all that now awaited us.  All that I had seen and shuddered at, on the day of my landing on the island, was now practised on self and partner.  We had to tread the long paved way to the distant cove at the river’s mouth; we had to endure the lashes from the switches of wild fig.  The priestess, carrying the wooden idol, walked hard by us, and cried out, whenever the blows fell fewer or lighter, that the idol was waxing too heavy for her to bear.  Then they redoubled their cruelties.

It was a wonderfully lovely day.  In the blue heaven there was not a cloud.  We had reached the river’s mouth, and were fast approaching the stakes that had already been fixed in the sands for our execution; nay, the piles of green wood were already being heaped up by the young men.  There was, there could be, no hope, and, weary and wounded, I almost welcomed the prospect of death, however cruel.

Suddenly the blows ceased to shower on me, and I heard a cry from the lips of the old priest, and, turning about, I saw that the eyes of all the assembled multitude were fixed on a point on the horizon.

Looking automatically in the direction towards which they were gazing, I beheld—­oh joy, oh wonder!—­I beheld a long trail of cloud floating level with the sea!  It was the smoke of a steamer!

“Too late, too late,” I thought, and bitterly reflected that, had the vessel appeared but an hour earlier, the attention of my cruel captors might have been diverted to such a spectacle as they had never seen before.

But it was not too late.

Perched on a little hillock, and straining his gaze to the south, the old priest was speaking loudly and excitedly.  The crowd deserted us, and gathered about him.

I threw myself on the sand, weary, hopeless, parched with thirst, and racked with pain.  Bludger was already lying in a crumpled mass at my feet.  I think he had fainted.

I retained consciousness, but that was all.  The fierceness of the sun beat upon me, the sky and sea and shore swam before me in a mist.  Presently I heard the voice of the priest, raised in the cadences which he favoured when he was reading texts out of their sacred books, if books they could be called.  I looked at him with a faint curiosity, and perceived that he held in his hands the wooden casket, adorned with strangely carved bands of gold and ivory, which I had seen on the night of my arrival on the island.

From this he had selected the old grey scraps of metal, scratched, as I was well aware, with what they conceived to be ancient prophecies.