with their revolvers slung round them with red cords, the persons of most importance among the peasants, and the culprits. A crowd of one thousand or more people were standing round. The governor, on arriving, stepped out of his carriage, delivered a prepared harangue, and asked for the culprits and a bench.

The latter demand was at first not understood. But a police constable whom the governor always took about with him, and who undertook to organize such executions — by no means exceptional in that province — explained that what was meant was a bench for flogging. A bench was brought as well as the rods, and then the executioners were summoned (the latter had been selected beforehand from some horse stealers of the same village, as the soldiers refused the office). When everything was ready, the