ks, for we both have much to do
ere we start forth on our return to Mo, and----"

My words were interrupted by a terrific explosion in such close proximity
to us that it caused us to jump, and was followed by a deafening crash of
falling masonry. From the lattice we saw the high handsome minaret of the
palace topple and fall amid a dense smoke and shower of stones. Our men
had undermined it and blown it up.

Liola shuddered, glancing at me in alarm.

"Fear not," I said. "Ere we leave, the city of Koussan must be devastated
and burned. Samory hath never given quarter, or shown mercy to his weaker
neighbours, and we will show none. Besides, he held thee captive as he
hath already held thy lover Omar and myself. He sold us to slavers that
we might be sacrificed in Kumassi, therefore the curse of thy
Crocodile-god Zomara placed upon him hath at last fallen. The flood-gates
of vengeance now opened the hand of man cannot close."

The great court of the harem, deserted by the troops, had become filled
with volumes of dense smoke, showing that fire had broken out somewhere
within the palace, and ever and anon explosions of a more or less violent
character told us that the hands of the destroyers were actually at work.
The sack of the Kasbah was indeed complete.

The loot, of which there was an enormous quantity of considerable value,
was being removed to a place of safety by a large body of men told off
for the purpose. Although Samory was a fugitive, yet the treasures found
within his private apartments were of no mean order, and ere noon had
passed preparations were being made for its conveyance to Mo, the greater
part of the city being already in flames. The fire roared and crackled,
choking smoke-clouds obscured the sun, and the heat wafted up was
stifling. All opposition to us had long ago ceased, but whenever an Arab
was found secreted or a fugitive, he was shot down without mercy. To
linger longer in the harem might, I judged, be dangerous on account of
the place having been fired, therefore we went together out into the
court, and stepping over the mutilated bodies of its beautiful prisoners,
entered the chamber where Samory had held his court. Empty, dismantled
and wrecked, its appearance showed plainly how the mighty monarch had
fallen. Even the great bejewelled manuscript of the Koran, the Arab book
of Everlasting Will, that had reposed upon its golden stand at the end of
the fine, high-roofed chamber, had been t