406 TREACHEROUS MURDER OF SALE [chap. xv. 
cheeta. At that time peace had been established 
between Kamrasi and the three great chiefs, who were 
invited to a conference at M’rooli with a treacherous 
design on the part of the king. Hardly had they 
arrived, when Rionga was seized by Kamrasi’s orders, 
and confined in a circular hut with high mud walls 
and no doorway; the prisoner was hoisted up and 
lowered down through an aperture in the roof. He 
was condemned to be burnt alive on the following 
morning for some imaginary offence, while Sali and 
Fowooka were to be either pardoned or murdered, as 
circumstances might dictate. Sali was a great friend 
of Rionga, and determined to rescue him; accordingly 
he plied the guards with drink, and engaged them in 
singing throughout the night on one side of the prison, 
while his men burrowed like rabbits beneath the wall 
on the opposite side, and rescued Rionga, who escaped. 
Sali showed extreme folly in remaining at M’rooli, 
and Kamrasi, suspicious of his complicity, immediately 
ordered him to be seized and cut to pieces: he was 
accordingly tied to a stake, and tortured by having 
his limbs cut off piecemeal—the hands being first 
severed at the wrists, and the arms at the elbow joints. 
Bacheeta was an eye-witness to this horrible act, and 
testified to the courage of Sali, who, while under 
the torture, cried out to his friends in the crowd, 
warning them to fly and save themselves, as he was a 
dead man, and they would share his fate should they 
remain. Some escaped, including Fowooka, but many 
were massacred on the spot, and the woman Bacheeta 
was captured by Kamrasi and subsequently sent by 
him to the Turks’ camp at Faloro, as already described. 
From that day unremitting warfare was carried on 
between Kamrasi and the island chiefs ; the climax 
was their defeat, and the capture of their women, 
through the assistance of the Turks. 
Kamrasi’s delight at the victory knew no bounds; 
ivory poured into the camp, and a hut was actually 
filled with elephants’ tusks of the largest size. Eddrees, 
