Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1894-11-09
SH E..
A History Of Adventure.
by II. RIDER HACCARD. I
XIX. coSTINuED)

Great Heaven he shouted they are
Corpses on fire. y
stared, and stared again. He was per-
fectly right; the torches that were TO light
our entertainment were human mummies
from the caves.
On rushed the bearers Of the flaming
corpses, and meeting at a spot about TWEEN.
" PAGES in front of US built their CHASTITY
burdens crossways into hugh bonfire
Heavens! how they roared and tlared No
tar barrel could have burned as those
mummies did Nor was this all Sud-
denly saw one great fellow seize fam
ing human arm that had fallen from lis
parent frame, and rushed off into the dark
ness Presently he stopped, and tall
streak of fire shot up into the air, illumn
ing the gloom, and also the lamp from
which it sprung. The lamp was,the mum
my of a woman tied to a stout stake let
into the rock, and he had fired her hair
Or he went few PAGES and touched "A
second, then a third and fourth, till at last
we were surrounded on all three sides by
great ring of bodies tlaring furiOusly; the
material with which they were preserved
having rendered them so inhammable that
the flames would literally spout out of the
ears and mouth, in tongues of fire foot
or more long.
Nero Illuminated his gardens with live
Christians soaked in tar, and we were now
treated to a similar spectacle, probably for
the first time since his day, only happily
our lamps were not living ones.
But although this element of horror was
fortunately wanting, 10 describe the aw-
full and hideous grandeur Of the spectacle
thus presented to US is, | feel so absolute
ly beyond my poor powers that | scarcely
dare attempt IT. To begin with, II appeal
ed to the moral as well as the physical sus
capabilities. There was something very
terrible, and yet very fascinating, about
the employment of the remote dead TO II
lumine the orgies of the living, in itself
the thing was a satire both on the living
and the dead. Caesars dust-or is it Alex
andersg-may stop bung hole but the
function Of these dead Caesars of the past
was 10 light up a savage orgy. 10 such
base uses do We come, of so little account
are we in the minds of the eager multi
tudes we have bred, most Of whom, so far
from revering our memory, will live to
curse us for begettiug them into such
world of woe.
Then there was the physical side of the
spectacle, and a weird and splendid one 1t
was. These old citizens of Kor burned as,
to Judge from their inscriptions. they had
lived-very fast, and with the utmost lib
erality. What is more there were plenty
of them. An soon as ever a mummy had
burned down to the ankles which 1t did
in about twenty minutes, the feet were
kicked away, and another one put in Its
place The bonfire was kept going on the
same generous scale and its flames shot
UP with a hiss and crackle twenty or
thirty feet into the air, throwing great
flashes of light far out into the gloom,
through which the dark forms of the Am
ahagger fitted to and fro like devils re
llltllSuluS Aht luitlhul n.y. " y "4''NS
and stared aghast-shocked, and yet fasci-
nated-at so strange spectacle, and half
expecting to see the spirits those flaming
forms had once enclosed come creeping
from the shadows 10 work vengeance on
their decorators
Il promised thee strange sight, mys
Holly laughed Ayesha, whose nerves
alone did not seem to be affected, and
behold have not failed thee. Also 1t
hath its lesson Trust not 10 the future
for who knows what the future may bring!
Therefore live for the day, and endcavor
not to escape the dust which seems to be
mans end What thinkest thou those
long forgotten mobiles and ladies would |
have felt had they known that they should /
one day flare to light the dance or boil the
pot of savages2 But see, here come the
dancers; merry crew-are they notF
The stage is lighted-now for the play"
AS she spoke we perceived two lines of
figures. one male and the other female, to
the number Of about hundred, each adj /
vancing around the human bonfire array |
ed only in the usual leopard and buck
skins They formed up, in perfect silence,
in two lines facing each other, between us
and the fire, and then the dance-a sort Of
internal and fiendish can-can began. To
describe it is quite impossible; but though |
there was a good deal of tossing Of legs |
and double shufllng, it seemed to our un
dance, and as usual with this dreadful peo
pie. whose minds seem to have taken their |
color from the caves in which they live, |
and whose jokes and amusements are
drawn from the ineXhaustible stores of |
preserved motality with which they share |
their homes, the subject appeared to be
most CHASTITY one. / know that it repre- /
scented an attempted murder first OF all, /
and then the burial alive of the victim and |