showed the profound impression the beautiful Nahi-Nava-Nahina had left on his mind; then, after swallowing a glass of rum, he continued his narrative.
CHAPTER XI
THE AUTO-DA-FÊ
"DURING the week I had been compelled to stay on at Negombo after my marriage I had had an anxious time. The Cingalese, when they have a grudge against a man, have a curious way of their own sometimes of paying him out. In Italy you arrange to have your enemy knifed; in Spain you knife him yourself; but in either case the thing has its risks. You pay a man to strike for you—the man may denounce you. You do the deed yourself—you may be seen at work. But in Ceylon, a land of ancient civilisation, they are far ahead of barbarous European countries. In Ceylon you kill your man by accident.
"As a rule this is the sort of accident by means of which an enemy is disposed of. You must know that Ceylon is the native land of elephants. Elephants are as common there as ducks in Holland. Ceylon supplies the whole world with ivory and the whole of India with elephants.
"Now elephants, as you know, are highly intelligent animals, which in those countries fulfil many functions, including that of executioner. In the latter case they learn their duties so well that they proceed in exact accordance with the directions given them. When the criminal is condemned to be quartered, they tear off his limbs, legs and arms one after the other, and then kill him. When death is the sentence they seize the unfortunate man with their trunk, throw him up in the air and catch him on their tusks. When there are extenuating circumstances, they pick up the patient in their trunk as before, whirl him three times round, as a countryman does with a sling, and toss him up in the air; unless he knocks against a tree or falls on too hard a bit of ground, he will get off sometimes with a broken leg, or a dislocated arm. Accordingly I had noticed that in Ceylon it is very seldom an elephant passes a cripple without giving him a little nod of recognition.
"Now, you will understand, everybody keeps his elephant, and each elephant has his driver. You invite a driver to smoke a pipe of opium, to chew a quid of betel, or to drink a glass of brandy, and you say to him:
"'I would gladly give 10, 20, 30,40, 50 rupees to the man who should come and inform me that so-and-so is dead,' mentioning, of course, the name of the man you wish to get rid of.
"'You mean it?' says the elephant-driver.
"'Upon my word of honour, I do.'
"'Here's my hand, and if I hear of his death I promise to be the first to bring you the news.' A week or so later you are told how an elephant passing some worthy man who was in no way interfering with him, suddenly turned savage, seized him with his trunk and, in spite of his driver's cries, threw him so high, so high that he was dead before he came down again.
"The same evening the driver is found lying about dead drunk, and on being questioned he answers that he is intoxicated with despair. Next day the dead man is buried according to the custom of the country, that is to say, they tear up a tree, hollow it out, put the body inside, fill the remaining space with pepper, and leave it so till they have got leave to burn it.
"Well, this is the fate I feared. So, during the few remaining days I spent at Negombo, whenever I saw an elephant on one side of the road, I used to cry, ' I know your tricks,'—and passed by on the other. So I was far from sorry when I found myself aboard a stout little brig, doing her eight knots an hour up the Malabar coast. Three weeks after my departure from Negombo I stepped ashore at Goa.
"I had embarked on a Portuguese vessel, and I observed the Captain to be in the greatest possible haste to reach port; he clapped on all sail even in heavy weather, and I could not help asking him why he was in such a desperate hurry. On this he told me he was a devout Catholic, and he thought it would be a fine thing for his salvation if he could arrive in time to be present at the Auto-da-Fê of 1824.
"I ought to tell you that these cere-
