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"I fear we may be too late," he said

"Who…," moaned the ancient mariner, as if to disprove hiist answered "My name is Warthrop"

"Warthrop!" cried the captain The eyes, as if loosed by the ue, sliding back and forth in their sockets but refusing to focus upon the doctor’s face They tirelessly traversed the ceiling, where Warthrop’s distorted shadow danced, thrown there by the la over Varner like a dee

"You know the naave the barest of nods

"God pity uttural reply, choked in spittle "’Twas all Warthrop’s doing, the devil curse him and all his kin!"

"A curse is one explanation," said the doctor dryly "Though I lean more toward Darwin ’s The evidence is on ht, Hezekiah Varner Alistair Warthrop was my father"

There was no response but for the odd, strangled, wheezing ist, "who couess, to sail to West Africa, perhaps Senegao of particular interest to him Yes? Did he not?"

"No…," murmured the old

"Not Senegadoodless mockery of royalty, the accursed ruler of that accursed land, the Oba, and I vow there is not to be found a heathen more foul or a libertine more loathsome in the four corners of the world!"

"The Oba of Benin had captured living specii?" asked the doctor He seemed startled by the notion

"He houses a whole troop of the horrible beasts in a chai cannot survive in captivity They starve to death"

"Not these, Warthrop," gasped the old sler "These monsters were quite fat and happy, thank you! I saith my oo eyes, and if I were a braver man, I would pluck them out for the offense!"

"They were fed?" The doctor’s tone was incredulous "How?"

"Children, irls Girls in the prih, squealing babes hurled naked into the hole For in the center of the te chamber Into the pit the priests throw her; I have seen this, Warthrop; I have seen it! Cast doenty feet to the bottoainst the s for a handhold, but of course there is none There is no escape! The head priest gives the signal; the great wooden door rolls up; and they come You smell it first, a rotten stench like death’s decay, then the loud huffing and sharp clicks of their fangs snapping, as the doo to her insensible judges above to have mercy Mercy, Warthrop! They stare down at her with faces set in stone, and, as the beasts burst into the pit, her terror robs her of her last shred of dignity: Her bladder eo She collapses into the dirt, covered in her own filth, as they descend upon her in athirty feet from the tunnel’s mouth to where she lays, the sacrificial laan lords whose regious ods demand; and so they supply

"The head is the most coveted prize The first to reach her seizes it and wrenches it fro heart flushes her blood through that eyser shoots into the air and paints cri alabaster bodies They snarl and snap for a piece of the meat, for meat she be now; hu far over the ri the spectators with the bloody reht of her in the ht No vision of hell could surpass it, Warthrop No ie or word born in the mind of h I have faithfully recorded here the old man’s words, true to race, as a casual reading ht lead one to believe Punctuated with the saible asides that peppered the entire interview, the foregoing soliloquy lasted nearly half an hour, with so fromy snuffle At times the words were voiced so softly that the doctor was forced to bend loith his ear nearly touching the grayish lips I have decided, for mercy’s sake, to spare the reader these soations)

"Or so I thought," moaned Varner after aof the flies disturbed