We started, and had not covered a hundred yards before a girl, whom I recognised as one of Bastin’s converts, came flying towards us and screaming out, “Help!  Help!  They kill the Bellower with fire!  They cook him like a pig!”

“Just what I expected,” said Bickley.

Then we ran hard, as evidently there was no time to lose.  While we went I extracted from the terrified girl, whom we forced to show us the way, that as the sacrifice was about to be offered Bastin had appeared, and, “making fire,” applied it to the god Oro, who instantly burst into flame.  Then he ran back, calling out that the devil was dead.  As he did so there was a loud explosion and Oro flew into pieces.  His burning head went a long way into the air and, falling on to one of the priests, killed him.  Thereon the other priests and the people seized the Bellower and made him fast.  Now they were engaged in heating an oven in which to put him to cook.  When it was ready they would eat him in honour of Oro.

“And serve him right too!” gasped Bickley, who, being stout, was not a good runner.  “Why can’t he leave other people’s gods alone instead of blowing them up with gunpowder?”

“Don’t know,” I answered.  “Hope we shall get there in time!”

“To be cooked and eaten with Bastin!” wheezed Bickley, after which his breath gave out.

As it chanced we did, for these stone ovens take a long time to heat.  There by the edge of his fiery grave with his hands and legs bound in palm-fibre shackles, stood Bastin, quite unmoved, smiling indeed, in a sort of seraphic way which irritated us both extremely.  Round him danced the infuriated priests of Oro, and round them, shrieking and howling with rage, was most of the population of Orofena.  We rushed up so suddenly that none tried to stop us, and took our stand on either side of him, producing our pistols as we did so.

“Thank you for coming,” said Bastin in the silence which followed; “though I don’t think it is the least use.  I cannot recall that any of the early martyrs were ever roasted and eaten, though, of course, throwing them into boiling oil or water was fairly common.  I take it that the rite is sacrificial and even in a low sense, sacramental, not merely one of common cannibalism.”

I stared at him, and Bickley gasped out: 

“If you are to be eaten, what does it matter why you are eaten?”

“Oh!” replied Bastin; “there is all the difference in the world, though it is one that I cannot expect you to appreciate.  And now please be quiet as I wish to say my prayers.  I imagine that those stones will be hot enough to do their office within twenty minutes or so, which is not very long.”

At that moment Marama appeared, evidently in a state of great perturbation.  With him were some of the priests or sorcerers who were dancing about as I imagine the priests of Baal must have done, and filled with fury.  They rolled their eyes, they stuck out their tongues, they uttered weird cries and shook their wooden knives at the placid Bastin.