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Two spectacles were taking place at once.
The first involved a circle about twenty yards in diameter marked out by sandbags around its circumference. In the centre of the circle was what looked like a telegraph pole with a man who was n***d apart from a loincloth and sandals tied to it, his feet a yard off the ground. Attendants were opening cages and spilling the contents of the cages into the sandbag circle. Rats, hundreds of them. I immediately intuited that these rats were starving and had been bred or trained to have a liking for human flesh. They wouldn’t have needed much breeding or training, judging by the behaviour of the rats I’d seen in the Middle City.
In a squealing torrent they ran to the centre of the circle. Presumably the pole was covered in something to give them a
