w into their faces, half choking them and
blotting out the sky, and mixed up with it were showers of sparks and
fragments of burning reeds brought forward on the wind.

"The house and sheds will soon catch now," said Leonard; "then they must
take refuge in the open spaces, where we can deal with them," and he
nodded towards the gun.

As he spoke tongues of flame darted into the air, first from the thatch
of the shed, then from the roof of the Nest. They were afire.

"We must be careful, Baas," said Otter, "or the slave-shelters behind us
will burn also, and all those in them."

"Heavens! I never thought of that," answered Leonard. "Here, Father, if
you wish to do a good work, take some of these people and the buckets
they use to water the slaves. Let three or four men get on to each roof
and extinguish the sparks as they fall, while others bring them water
from the moat."

The priest sprang up and set to the task, at which he laboured gallantly
for two long hours. Had it not been for his efforts, the sheds and the
slaves in them must have been burnt, for the sparks fell thick upon the
dry thatch, which caught again and again.

Now the sights and sounds grew more and more fearful. Maddened with
fear, the remainder of the slave-drivers and their servants rushed from
the flaming buildings, striving to escape from the fire. Some flung
themselves desperately into the aloes and prickly-pears on the inner
rampart, and, climbing the palisade beyond, escaped into the marsh,
while some collected on the open space, and at these the gun was fired
from time to time when the smoke lifted. Others again ran to the dike of
the slave camp begging for mercy, there to be shot by Otter, who never
wearied in his task of revenge. From behind them also rose the hideous
cries of the slaves, who believed that they were about to be burned
alive, and screamed as they dragged at their manacles.

"Oh, it is like hell!" said Juanna to Leonard, as she buried her face
in the grass that she might see no more, and to escape the suffocating
smoke. She was right.

So the time went on. One by one the roofs of the various buildings fell
in, and spouts of flame shot high into the air to descend about them
in a rain of sparks. But at last the cries ceased, for even the slaves
could yell no more; the fire grew less and less, and the wind dropped.
Then the sun rose on the scene of death and desolation. The morass
was swept bare to the depth of many hund