The Madman and the Pirate, page 79 by Robert Michael Ballantyne
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pirate in a circle, stamping time slowly with their feet while the women and children stood in a larger circle, marking time with hands and voices. Presently the dance grew more furious, and ultimately attained to a pitch of wild violence which is quite indescribable. At the height of the paroxysm, a warrior would ever and anon dart out from the circle with whirling club, and bring it down as if on the prisoner's skull, but would turn it aside so deftly that it just grazed his ear and fell with a dull thud on the ground. Other warriors made at him with their spears, which they thrust with lightning speed at his naked breast, but checked them just as they touched the skin.
Two or three of these last were so inexpert that they pricked the skin slightly, and blood began to trickle down, but these clumsy warriors were instantly kicked from the circle of dancers, and compelled to take their place among the women and children.
When they had exhausted themselves with the dance, the warriors sat down to feast upon viands, which had, in the meanwhile, been preparing for them, and while they feasted they taunted their prisoner with cowardice, and told him in graphic language of the horrors that yet awaited him.
Fortunately for the miserable man--who was left bound to the stake during the feast--he did not understand a word of what was said. He had been stripped of all clothing save a pair of short breeches, reaching a little below the knee, and his naked feet rested on a curious piece of basketwork. This last would have been too slight to bear his weight if he had not been almost suspended by the cords that bound him to the stake.
Rosco was very pale. He felt that his doom was fixed; but his native courage did not forsake him. He braced himself to meet his fate like a man, and resolved to shut his eyes, when next they began to dance round him, so that he should not shrink from the blow or thrust which, he felt sure, would ere long end his ill-spent life. But the time seemed to him terribly long,