Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 10.djvu/230

 A DISASTROUS ORGY. The king applied the match to the surface of the spirit. The effect was instantaneous. High above the edge of the bowl the blue flame rose and curled. To give intensity to the process Alvez had added a sprinkling of salt to the mixture, and this caused the fire to cast upon the faces of all around that lurid glare which is generally associated with apparitions of ghosts and phantoms. Half intoxicated already, the negroes yelled and gesticulated; and joining hands, they performed a fiendish dance around their monarch. Alvez stood and stirred the spirit with an enormous metal ladle, attached to a pole, and as the flames rose yet higher and higher they seemed t6 throw a more and more unearthly glamor over the ape-like forms that circled in their wild career.

Moené Loonga, in his eagerness, soon seized the ladle from the slave-dealer's hands, plunged it deep into the bowl, and bringing it up again full of the blazing punch, raised it to his lips. A horrible shriek brought the dancers to a sudden standstill. By a kind of spontaneous combustion, the king had taken fire internally.—Page 194. Vol 10.