the bee-hive shaped palm-walled and thatched huts, which were so close
together that five of his men were easily able to fire to right and
left, Tom and another man musket-armed ready to cover them, and their
young leader standing sword in one hand, the lantern in the other, well
on the watch, and at the same time ready to supply fresh ignition to any
of the rough torches which should become extinct.

"Bravo!" shouted Murray, for at the first start of his little party the
torches were applied to the dry inflammable palm fabrics, and the flames
sprang into fiery life at once. "Good, my lads--good! That's right,"
he cried. "Right down at the bottom. Couldn't be better."

For at the first application there was a hiss, then a fierce crackling
sound, and the fire literally ran up from base to crown of the rounded
edifice, which was soon roaring like a furnace.

"Hooray, boys!" cried Tom May. "Don't stop to save any of the best
chayney or the niggers' silver spoons and forks. They belong to such a
bad lot that we won't loot anything to save for prizes. And I say,
that's it, going fine. Never mind getting a bit black with the smoke.
It'll all wash off, and that's what these brutes of niggers can't do."

The men shouted in reply and roared with laughter at their messmates'
sallies, as they hurried from hut to hut, every one blazing up as
rapidly as if it had been sprinkled with resin.

Murray's idea was that they would be able to keep on steadily in a
well-ordered line, firing hut after hut as they went; but in a very few
minutes, in spite of discipline, he soon found that it would be
impossible to follow out his instructions. Once the fire was started it
roared up and leaped to the next hut or to those beyond it. The heat
became insufferable, the smoke blinding, so that the men were confused
and kept on starting back, coughing, sneezing, and now and then one was
glad to stand stamping and rubbing his hair, singed and scorched by the
darting tongues of flame.

"Hold together, my lads; hold together!" shouted Murray. "We must look
to ourselves; the others will do the same; but keep on shouting so as to
be in touch."

"Ay, ay, sir!" cried Tom May. "You hear, my lads?"

Half-heard shouts came back out of the smoke, but it soon became
impossible to communicate with the men with anything like regularity,
for the roar and crackle of the flames grew deafening, many of the
bamboo posts exploding like muskets, and be