this extensive abode of luxury,
where beautiful fountains shot high into the morning sunlight,
sweet-smelling flowers bloomed everywhere and sensuous odours from
perfuming-pans hung heavily in the air, seemed suddenly transformed into
a demoniac horde bent upon the most ruthless devastation. They remembered
that times without number had the Sofas of Samory burnt their villages
and towns, and carried hundreds of their tribesmen away as slaves; they
were now seeking revenge for past wrongs.

As, nauseated by the sight of blood, I witnessed these awful atrocities,
I reflected that the curse of Zomara, uttered solemnly by Omar when
Samory had sold us to the slave-dealers, had at last fallen upon the Arab
chieftain.

Omar had prophesied the downfall of Samory, and his utterance was now
fulfilled.

Screams, piercing and heart-rending, sounded everywhere, mingled with the
fierce war-shouts of our savage allies, as, time after time, some
unfortunate woman in gorgeous garb and ablaze with valuable gems was
discovered, dragged unceremoniously from her hiding-place to the great
court wherein I stood, her many necklets ruthlessly torn from her white
throat and a keen sword drawn across it as a butcher would calmly
despatch a lamb. Then, when life had ebbed, her body would be cast into
the great basin of the fountain, where hundreds of others had already
been pitched.

In other parts of the Kasbah a similar massacre was proceeding, none of
those found therein being allowed to escape; while an active search was
everywhere in progress for Samory himself.

From where I stood I witnessed the breaking up of the Arab ruler's
throne, and the tearing down of the great canopy of amaranth silk under
which Samory had reclined when, with Omar, I had been brought before him.
The crescent of solid gold that had surmounted it was handed to Kona, who
broke it in half beneath his heel as sign of the completeness of his
victory. Then, when the destruction of the seat of the brutal autocrat
was complete, the _debris_ with the torn silk, and the long strips of
crimson cloth, whereon good counsels from the Koran were embroidered in
Kufic characters of gold, that had formed a kind of frieze to the
chamber, were carried out into the court by fifty willing hands, heaped
up and there burnt.

While watching the flames leaping up consuming the wrecked remains of the
royal seat of the powerful Arab ruler, a woman's scream, louder than the
rest, caused