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Rh do you pull your weight? The mass of your mortal flesh shall furnish the sacrifice for the Bhairobi worship. What a better luck than this can a man of your run expect?"

After fastly securing Nabokumar, the KapaliK laid him down on the sands and set himself to attend to the preparatory rites of worship. In the meantime Nabokumar tried to burst the bonds. But the dry creepers proved too strong and the knots too firm and he saw death before him. He resigned his soul to the sacred feet of his cherished god. The visions of his native land and his blessed home and the images of his long-lost parents passed before his mind in quick succession and a drop or two of scalding tears trickled down to the earth to be soaked into the parched sea-sands. Having finished the preliminary rites, the Kapalik left his seat to get his execution-axe. But he could not find the axe where it was kept. What a surprise! The Kapalik wondered a bit. He was cocksure that he brought the axe in the afternoon, put it at the right place and did not remove it anywhere else. Then what became of the axe? He conducted a hurried search here and there. But the axe could not be traced. Then facing the hut, he called out to Kapalkundala but despite repeated calls no answer came. Then the Kapalik's eyes inflamed and his eye-brows contracted. He hastened to the cottage-side. At the interval, Nabokumar made another attempt at burstmg the binding creepers but that effort, too, shared its former fate.