No one could see them without pitying him, and no man in his senses would have accepted their owner's word on any point at all.

A man looks as he did when the fire of a burning velt has circled him and there is no way out.

There was fear behind them, and the look of restless search for safety that is nowhere.
In one of the many-columned courtyards of the palace was a chained, mad elephant whose duty was to kneel on the Rajah's captive enemies.

In another courtyard was a big, square tank with a weedy, slippery stone ramp at one end; in the tank were alligators; down the ramp other of the Rajah's enemies, tight-bound, would scream and struggle and slide from time to time.

But they were only little enemies who died in that way; the greater ones, who had power or influence, lived on and plotted, because the owner of the execution beasts was afraid to put them to their use.
Below, in damp, unlit dungeons, there were silken cords suspended from stone ceilings; their ends were noosed, and the nooses hung ten feet above the floor; those told only, though, of the fate of women who had schemed unwisely--favorites of a week, perhaps, who had dared to sulk, listeners through screens who had forgotten to forget.