[The Great Taboo by Grant Allen]@TWC D-Link bookThe Great Taboo CHAPTER II 17/25
My people, bind her." In a second, without more ado, while the poor trembling girl writhed and groaned in her agony before their eyes, that mob of wild savages, let loose to torture and slay, fell upon her with hideous shouts, and bound her, as they had bound their comrade before, with coarse native ropes of twisted plantain fibre. "Lay her head on the stone," Tu-Kila-Kila said, grimly.
And his votaries obeyed him. "Now light the sacred fire to make our feast, before I slay the victims," the god said, in a gloating voice, running his finger again along the edge of his huge hatchet. As he spoke, two men, holding in their hands hollow bamboos with coals of fire concealed within, which they kept aglow meanwhile by waving them up and down rapidly in the air, laid these primitive matches to the base of a great pyramidal pile of wood and palm-leaves, ready prepared beforehand in the yard of the temple.
In a second, the dry fuel, catching the sparks instantly, blazed up to heaven with a wild outburst of flame.
Great red tongues of fire licked up the mouldering mass of leaves and twigs, and caught at once at the trunks of palm and li wood within.
A huge conflagration reddened the sky at once like lightning.
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