I Requested
Him Never To Mention The Subject Again, As I Would Not Part With It
Under Any Circumstances.
Just at this moment I heard an uproar outside
my gate, and loud screams, attended with heavy blows.
A man was dragged
past the entrance of the courtyard bound hand and foot, and was
immediately cudgelled to death by a crowd of natives. This operation
continued for some minutes, until his bones had been thoroughly broken
up by the repeated blows of clubs. The body was dragged to a grove of
plantains, and was there left for the vultures, who in a few minutes
congregated around it.
It appeared that the offence thus summarily punished was the simple act
of conversing with some of the natives who had attended Mahommed's men
from Fowooka's island to Kisoona: a conversation with one of the enemy
was considered high treason, and was punished with immediate death. In
such cases, where either Kamrasi or his brother M'Gambi determined upon
the sudden execution of a criminal, the signal was given by touching the
condemned with the point of a lance: this sign was the order that was
immediately obeyed by the guards who were in attendance, and the culprit
was beaten to death upon the spot. Sometimes the condemned was touched
by a stick instead of a lance-point; this was a signal that he should be
killed by the lance, and the sentence was carried out by thrusting him
through the body with numerous spears - thus the instrument used to slay
the criminal was always contrary to the sign.
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