166 VISITS TO MADAGASCAE. chap. vi. 



Two of them, viz. Andriampinery and Eamanandalana, were 

 husband and wife, the latter expecting to become a mother. 

 At the place of execution life was offered them if they would 

 take the required idolatrous oath. Declining to do this, they 

 were bound, and laid on the pile of wood or placed be- 

 tween split poles, more wood being heaped upon them, and 

 the pile was then kindled. Amidst the smoke and blaze of 

 the burning wood the pangs of maternity were added to those 

 of an agonising death, and at this awful moment the martyr's 

 child was born. I asked my informants what the execu- 

 tioners or bystanders did with the babe: they answered, 

 " Thrust it into the flames, where its body was burned with its 

 parents', its spirit to ascend with theirs to God." 



The remaining fourteen were taken to a place of common 

 execution, whither a number of felons who had been sen- 

 tenced to death were also taken to be executed together with 

 the Christians. The latter were put to death by being thrown 

 over a steep precipice — the Tarpeian Rock of Antananarivo. 

 Each one was suspended by a cord on or near the edge of the 

 precipice, and there offered life on condition of renouncing 

 Christ and taking the required oaths. Of these there was 

 one who, though in the prospect of an ignominious, instant, 

 and violent death, spoke with such calm self-possession and 

 humble confidence and hope of the near prospect of glory 

 and immortal blessedness, as very deeply to affect those 

 around him. The young woman who had walked to the place 

 of execution it was hoped would be induced to recant. With 

 this view she was, according to orders, reserved until the last, 

 and placed in such a position as to see all the others, one 

 after another, hurled over the fatal rock. So far from being 

 intimidated she requested to follow her friends, when the idol 

 keeper present struck her on the face and urged her to take 

 the oath and acknowledge the idols. She refused, and begged 

 to share the fate of her friends. The executioner then said, 



