of blue were murderers--known murderers. All Wieroos are murderers.
When they have committed a certain number of murders without being
caught at it, they confess to Him Who Speaks for Luata and are
advanced, after which they wear robes with a slash of some color--
I think yellow comes first. When they reach a point where the
entire robe is of yellow, they discard it for a white robe with a
red slash; and when one wins a complete red robe, he carries such
a long, curved knife as you have in your hand; after that comes
the blue slash on a white robe, and then, I suppose, an all blue robe.
I have never seen such a one."

As they talked in low tones they had moved from the room of the
death shaft into an all blue room adjoining, where they sat down
together in a corner with their backs against a wall and drew a
pile of hides over themselves. A moment later they heard a
number of Wieroos enter the chamber. They were talking together
as they crossed the floor, or the two could not have heard them.
Halfway across the chamber they halted as the door toward which
they were advancing opened and a dozen others of their kind
entered the apartment.

Bradley could guess all this by the increased volume of sound and
the dismal greetings; but the sudden silence that almost
immediately ensued he could not fathom, for he could not know
that from beneath one of the hides that covered him protruded one
of his heavy army shoes, or that some eighteen large Wieroos with
robes either solid red or slashed with red or blue were standing
gazing at it. Nor could he hear their stealthy approach.

The first intimation he had that he had been discovered was when