--the corner which was, unhappily for the rebels, right to
windward of them; and although a number of men immediately rushed to the
spot and did all in their power to trample or beat out the flames, it
was of no avail. The fire spread with appalling rapidity, and five
minutes after that incendiary shell had fallen the whole of the outer
edge of the jungle was a continuous sheet of flame, the roar of which
was plainly audible to the imprisoned spectator.

Great masses of dense smoke were driven upward and forward through the
jungle, and presently the hidden rebel soldiery came streaming out,
driven forth by the flames and smoke; and so swift had been the advance
of the fire that the clothing of some of the last to escape was actually
smouldering.

Darkness was now falling rapidly, and, sorry as he felt for the rebels
in their defeat, the young Englishman could not but admire the weird
magnificence of the scene displayed before him. A section of thick
jungle, fully a quarter of a mile long and a hundred yards wide, was one
roaring, crackling mass of fire. The flames were leaping forward at the
rate of many yards a minute, while they must have attained a height of
fully thirty feet. Clouds of dense smoke billowed upward, their under
surfaces vividly illuminated by the ruddy reflection of the leaping
flames. Even the sea itself, for a mile round, was brilliantly
illuminated by the glare, and the three little fleets of boats, which
were now approaching the shore, with jets of flame spurting from the
muzzles of their swivel-guns, appeared to be floating in liquid flame.

Here, there, and everywhere could be heard the explosions of ammunition
as the flames reached the loose piles of cartridges which each man had
placed beside himself while firing on the fort; and, with the continuous
flash and explosion of the shells as they plunged into the earth, the
black silhouettes of the men and guns upon that background of smoke and
flame, and the deep, orange glow of the reflected flames in the sky, the
scene so indelibly impressed itself upon Frobisher's memory that he is
not likely to forget it as long as he lives.

The fire greatly assisted the garrison and the men in the boats, for it
afforded them ample light to direct their volleys accurately, and also
to choose the most favourable spot at which to effect their landing; and
it soon became perfectly clear that all hope of success on the part of
the rebels was at an end. Y