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Analogy suggests it; the blank shots fired after him, the statement
that the ceremony often proves fatal, the belief that his death is a
happy omen, all confirm it. We need not wonder then that the Jalno,
after paying so dear to act as deputy-deity for a few weeks, should
have preferred to die by deputy rather than in his own person when
his time was up. The painful but necessary duty was accordingly laid
on some poor devil, some social outcast, some wretch with whom the
world had gone hard, who readily agreed to throw away his life at
the end of a few days if only he might have his fling in the
meantime. For observe that while the time allowed to the original
deputy--the Jalno--was measured by weeks, the time allowed to the
deputy's deputy was cut down to days, ten days according to one
authority, seven days according to another. So short a rope was
doubtless thought a long enough tether for so black or sickly a
sheep; so few sands in the hour-glass, slipping so fast away,
sufficed for one who had wasted so many precious years.


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