The Chief Pauper took his station by the central stone, and in his right hand he held a long, keen knife.

Toward this stone I was led.

The Chief Pauper then looked with his blear and blinking eyes to where the dawn was glowing over the mountain crest, and every moment increasing in brightness; and then, after a brief survey, he turned and whetted his knife on the sacrificial stone.

After this he turned to me with his evil face, with the glare of a horrid death-hunger in his ravenous eyes, and pointed to the stone.
I stood without motion.
He repeated the gesture and said, "Lie down here." "I will not," said I.
"But it is on this stone," said he, "that you are to get the blessing of death." "I'll die first!" said I, fiercely, and I raised my rifle.
The Chief Pauper was puzzled at this.

The others looked on quietly, thinking it probably a debate about some punctilio.