lutely fiendish.

Into the hearts of the survivors of the gallant force who had so readily
constructed our barricade and so valiantly defended it, despair had
entered. There was now no hope for the success of our cause. The forces
of tyranny, oppression and misrule were fast proving the victors, and in
that fearful indiscriminate shooting down of men, women and children that
was proceeding, all knew that sooner or later they must fall victims.

I had seen nothing of Kona or Goliba since the wrecking of our
barricade, but Omar, I was gratified to observe, was stationed at a
window of the opposite house from which he directed well-aimed shots at
those below. A body of fully five hundred infantry were besieging the
house wherein a large number of our comrades had taken shelter,
determined to put them to the sword; yet so desperate was the resistance
that they found it impossible to enter, and many were killed in their
futile endeavours. At length I noticed that while the main body covered
the movements of several of their companions the latter were preparing a
mine by which to blow it up. With the half-dozen men beside me we kept up
a galling fire upon them, but all in vain. The mine was laid; only a
spark was required to blow the place into the air.

Knowing that if such a catastrophe were accomplished we, too, must suffer
being in such close proximity to it, we waited breathlessly, unable to
escape from the vicinity of the deadly spot.

Suddenly, as one man, more fearless than the others, bent to fire the
mine, the soldiers, with one accord, rushed back, and scarce daring to
breathe I waited, fearing each second to see the house and its garrison
shattered to fragments and myself receive the full force of the
explosive.

But at that instant, even as I watched, a loud exultant shout broke upon
my ear, and looking I saw approaching from the opposite end of the street
a great crowd of people rushing forward, firing rapidly as they came.

They were our comrades. Their shouts were shouts of victory!

"Kill them!" they cried. "Let not one escape. They have killed our
brothers; let us have revenge! The Naya shall die, and Omar shall be our
Naba!"

The man bending over the explosive sprang back in fear without having
applied the fatal spark, and his companions, taken thus completely by
surprise, stood amazed at this sudden appearance of so large a body of
the populace. But the rifles of the latter in a few seconds had lai