Page:The land of fetish.pdf/184

 "We reach the square of the village: there is nothing—nobody to be seen. Nobody? Ah! Mon Dieu, somebody. I nearly fall over some object which strikes my feet. I look down to see what it may be, and I see a corpse. Yes, a corpse of a young girl, une pucelle; still warm. I look for the cause of death, and I find, horrible to speak of, on the left breast a dreadful wound, a cavity—the flesh tom away. Mon ami, the heart of that poor girl had been torn out. Ah! so young, such beautiful limbs—It is the work of the accursed fraternity."

"Well," said I, when he had arrived at this point, "what did you do?"

"Do? What could I do? Nothing at all. There was not one person left in the village—I searched each house: all empty. Could I go and hunt in the dark forest for the murderers? No—I went on my way and arrived at my factory."

"I suppose you told the Commandant of Sherbro about this?" I inquired.

"Yes, I told him; but he said he could do nothing, and it was not advisable to make trouble. It is many years ago now, and Chief Manin had just signed a treaty with your Government. They did not wish to have any more palaver."

When I arrived at Sierra Leone in January 1881