The Girl from Hong-Kong: A Story of Adventure Under Five Suns — page 97: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE GIRL FROM HUNG-KONG. OL criminal or otherwise. He picked out five men who had been imprisoned for non-payment of taxes. This is heinous offense in the eyes of Persian officials, and the | governor thought that their execution would not only scare the robbers but be a warning to other tax dodgers that prompt settloment with the collectors was eminently desirable. _ “Accordingly, the five prisoners, chained neck and neck, were marched out of prison, and, slowly escorted by a large mob, who were kept from pressing too close by soldiers with fixed bayonets and others with long sticks, were taken to the Koran Gate, near the Bagha-No, ou the town side of which, alongside the road, their wells had been prepared. It took one hour to reach the Bagh-i-No, but, the torture of this form of execution being unknown to the prisoners, they walked along without a sign of fear. \ “They were taken into a high-walled garden, a guard being placed at the entrance, and in a short time the first to be executed was brought out. Round his neck was a steel collar with a chain, which his guard held tightly in his hand. Some one offered him a pitcher of water, from which he eagerly drank, and then, not knowing to what awful death he was doomed, he walked calmly and without a word to his well. It took nearly half an hour to fill the well with gatch, dunagiabbarticin