oll forth on the still, solemn beauty of the night, and the
Wangoni, reluctantly quitting the congenial work of plunder and rapine,
drive into open space every living being they can muster, the two
leaders step forward, and with critical decision inspect the extent and
quality of their capture. Of the latter there are none but able-bodied,
for the sufficiently hideous reason already set forth. These are
drafted into gangs according to age or sex, and yoked together like
oxen, with heavy wooden yokes.

Upon the whole of this wild scene of carnage and massacre the principal
leader of the slave-hunters has gazed unmoved. Not a shot has he fired,
not deeming it necessary, so complete was the panic wherewith the
cannibal village was overwhelmed. Rather have his energies been devoted
to restraining the blood-thirst of his ferocious followers, for he looks
upon the tragedy with a cold commercial eye. Prisoners represent so many
saleable wares. If it is essential that his hell-hounds shall taste a
modicum of blood, or their appetite for that species of quarry would be
gone, it is his business to see that they destroy no more "property"
than can be avoided.

The force is made up of Swahili and negroid Arabs, and a strong
contingent of Wangoni--a Zulu-speaking tribe, turbulent, warlike, and to
whom such a maraud as this comes as the most congenial occupation in the
world.

The last-named savages are still looking through the reed huts in search
of food, arms, anything portable. If during their quest they happen upon
a terrified fugitive hoping for concealment, their delight knows no
bounds, for have they not the enjoyment of privily spearing such, away
from their leader's eye?

The said leader now gives the word to march, and as the moonlight pales
into the first grays of dawn the scene of the massacre becomes plain in
all its appalling detail. Corpses ripped and slashed, lying around in
every contorted attitude, among broken weapons and strewn about
articles of clothing or furniture. Everywhere blood--the ground is
slippery with it, the huts are splashed with it, the persons and weapons
of the raiders are all horrid with it; and in the midst that band of men
and women yoked like cattle, and with the same hopeless, stolid
expression now upon their countenances. Yet they are not dejected. Their
lives have been spared where others have been slain. But they are
slaves.

"Bid farewell to home, O foul and evil dogs who devour ea