The occasion was to serve as an object-lesson
to all other slaves of the danger and futility of attempted escape,
and the fatal consequences of taking the life of a superior being,
and so I imagine that Sagoths felt amply justified in making the
entire proceeding as uncomfortable and painful to us as possible.
They jabbed us with their spears and struck at us with the hatchets
at the least provocation, and at no provocation at all. It was a
most uncomfortable half-hour that we spent before we were finally
herded through a low entrance into a huge building the center of
which was given up to a good-sized arena. Benches surrounded this
open space upon three sides, and along the fourth were heaped huge
bowlders which rose in receding tiers toward the roof.
At first I couldn't make out the purpose of this mighty pile of
rock, unless it were intended as a rough and picturesque background
for the scenes which were enacted in the arena before it, but
presently, after the wooden benches had been pretty well filled by
slaves and Sagoths, I discovered the purpose of the bowlders, for
then the Mahars began to file into the enclosure.
They marched directly across the arena toward the rocks upon the
opposite side, where, spreading their bat-like wings, they rose
above the high wall of the pit, settling down upon the bowlders
above. These were the reserved seats, the boxes of the elect.
Reptiles that they are, the rough surface of a great stone is
to them as plush as upholstery to us.
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