It was an important matter, this choosing a victim.

As he passed, a close observer might have noted that each man trembled visibly while the god's eye was upon him, and looked after him askance with a terrified sidelong gaze as he passed on to his neighbor.

But not one savage gave any overt sign or token of his terror or his reluctance.

On the contrary, as Tu-Kila-Kila passed along the line with lazy, cruel deliberateness, the men kept chanting aloud without one tremor in their voices, "We are all your meat.

Choose which one you will take of us." On a sudden, Tu-Kila-Kila turned sharply round, and, darting a rapid glance toward a row he had already passed several minutes before, he exclaimed, with an air of unexpected inspiration, "Tu-Kila-Kila has chosen.