our.

The roar of the flames grew less and the tumult within their fiery
circle died away. For now the Mazitu were returning from the last fight
in the market-place, if fight it could be called, bearing in their arms
great bundles of the guns which they had collected from the dead Arabs,
most of whom had thrown down their weapons in a last wild effort to
escape. But between the spears of the infuriated savages on the one hand
and the devouring fire on the other what escape was there for them?
The blood-stained wretches who remained in the camps and towns of the
slave-traders, along the eastern coast of Africa, or in the Isle of
Madagascar, alone could tell how many were lost, since of those who went
out from them to make war upon the Mazitu and their white friends, none
returned again with the long lines of expected captives. They had gone
to their own place, of which sometimes that flaming African city has
seemed to me a symbol. They were wicked men indeed, devils stalking the
earth in human form, without pity, without shame. Yet I could not help
feeling sorry for them at the last, for truly their end was awful.

They brought the prisoners up to us, and among them, his white
robe half-burnt off him, I recognised the hideous pock-marked
Hassan-ben-Mohammed.

"I received your letter, written a while ago, in which you promised
to make us die by fire, and, this morning, I received your message,
Hassan," I said, "brought by the wounded lad who escaped from you when
you murdered his companions, and to both I sent you an answer. If none
reached you, look around, for there is one written large in a tongue
that all can read."

The monster, for he was no less, flung himself upon the ground, praying
for mercy. Indeed, seeing Mrs. Eversley, he crawled to her and catching
hold of her white robe, begged her to intercede for him.

"You made a slave of me after I had nursed you in the spotted sickness,"
she answered, "and tried to kill my husband for no fault. Through you,
Hassan, I have spent all the best years of my life among savages, alone
and in despair. Still, for my part, I forgive you, but oh! may I never
see your face again."

Then she wrenched herself free from his grasp and went away with her
daughter.

"I, too, forgive you, although you murdered my people and for twenty
years made my time a torment," said Brother John, who was one of the
truest Christians I have ever known. "May God forgive you also"; and he
follo