166 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CHAP. VI. 
Two of them, viz. Andriampinery and Ramanandalana, 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 bom. 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 Gfod.” 
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, 
