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and, in reply to the request, told them, calmly, that he 
did not think the king had arrived, and that, therefore, 
it was unnecessary for him to go down. They then told 
him that the priest, or some of his friends, wished to see 
him, and again invited him to descend. Why,’^ said 
he, do you thus seek to deceive me ? The priest, or 
friends, may wish to see me, but it is under very 
different circumstances from what your message would 
imply: I know a ceremony approaches, that a human 
victim is then to be offered—something within tells me 
I am to be that victim^ and your appearance and your 
message confirms my conviction. Jesus Christ is my 
keeper, without his permission you cannot harm me; 
you may be permitted to kill my body, but, I am not 
afraid to die! My soul you cannot hurt; that is safe in 
the hands of Jesus Christ, by whom it will be kept 
beyond your power.Perceiving there was but little 
prospect of inducing him, by falsehood, to accompany 
them towards the beach, and irritated, probably, by his 
heroical reply, they rushed upon him, wounded, and 
murdered him, and then, in a long basket made with the 
leaves of the overshadowing cocoa-nut tree, bore his 
body to the temple, where, with exultation, it was 
offered in sacrifice to their god. They had, perhaps, 
beheld, with fiend-like joy, his writhing agonies in 
death, and listened, with equal delight, to his expiring 
groans. The unconscious earth had been saturated 
with his blood; and, when they placed his body on 
the inide altar, or suspended it from the sacred tree, in 
the presence of their god, they not only supposed they 
offered a sacrifice, at once acceptable and efficacious, 
but, doubtless, viewed the immolation as one by which 
they had achieved for idolatry a triumph over humanity 
