state, consisted of an earthen bank on the top of which tree trunks were set close together.  Many of these had struck in that fertile soil, so that in general appearance this protective work resembled a huge live fence, on the outer and inner side of which grew great masses of prickly pear and tall, finger-like cacti.  A while afterwards Hans reported that the Mazitu were retreating and a few minutes later they began to arrive through the south gate, bringing several wounded with them.  Their captain said that they could not stand against the fire of the guns and had determined to abandon the town and make the best fight they could upon the ridge.

A little later the rest of the Mazitu came, driving before them all the non-combatants who remained in the town.  With these was King Bausi, in a terrible state of excitement.

“Was I not wise, Macumazana,” he shouted, “to fear the slave-traders and their guns?  Now they have come to kill those who are old and to take the young away in their gangs to sell them.”

“Yes, King,” I could not help answering, “you were wise.  But if you had done what I said and kept a better look-out Hassan could not have crept on you like a leopard on a goat.”

“It is true,” he groaned; “but who knows the taste of a fruit till he has bitten it?”

Then he went to see to the disposal of his soldiers along the ridge, placing, by my advice, the most of them at each end of the line to frustrate any attempt to out-flank us.  We, for our part, busied ourselves in serving out those guns which we had taken in the first fight with the slavers to the thirty or forty picked men whom I had been instructing in the use of firearms.  If they did not do much damage, at least, I thought, they could make a noise and impress the enemy with the idea that we were well armed.

Ten minutes or so later Babemba arrived with about fifty men, all the Mazitu soldiers who were left in the town.  He reported that he had held the north gate as long as he could in order to gain time, and that the Arabs were breaking it in.  I begged him to order the soldiers to pile up stones as a defence against the bullets and to lie down behind them.  This he went to do.

Then, after a pause, we saw a large body of the Arabs who had effected an entry, advancing down the central street towards us.  Some of them had spears as well as guns, on which they carried a dozen or so of human heads cut from the Mazitus who had been killed, waving them aloft and shouting in triumph.  It was a sickening sight, and one that made me grind my teeth with rage.  Also I could not help reflecting that ere long our heads might be upon those spears.  Well, if the worst came to the worst I was determined that I would not be taken alive to be burned in a slow fire or pinned over an ant-heap, a point upon which the others agreed with me, though poor Brother John had scruples as to suicide, even in despair.

It was just then that I missed Hans and asked where he had gone.  Somebody said that he thought he had seen him running away, whereon Mavovo, who was growing excited, called out: