m to spread. Also the rebounding missiles flying hither and
thither among the crowd did no little execution. Down went the men in
heaps, and with them the planks they carried. They had no more wish
to storm the slave camp; they had but one thought left, the thought of
safety, and the survivors of them fled in all directions, yelling with
fear and fury.

"Load up, load up!" cried Otter, lifting the charge of powder which lay
at hand. "They will try to break open the gates and get out, then they
will cut us off."

As he spoke they saw many men run from the auction-shed to the
water-gate. But it could not be climbed, the key was gone, and the
massive bolts and beams were not easy to break. So they brought hammers
and a tree-trunk which had supported an angle of the shed, and battered
at the gate. For two minutes or more it held, then it began to give.

"Swift! swift!" cried Otter again as he dragged at the cannon to turn
it, "or all will yet be lost."

"Hurry no man's ox, Black One," said Soa, as she laid the gun with the
help of Peter.

A cry went up from the slavers; the gate was tottering, but it still
held by the upper hinges. A few more blows and it must surely fall. But
those blows were never struck. Again Soa sprang backwards, and the roar
of the gun was answered by the screams of the slavers as the shrapnel
ploughed through them.

Of those who were left the most part fled for shelter to the auction-hut
and to the Nest itself. Some ran across to the magazine, but appeared to
be unable to enter it, for soon they were seen flying back again, while
about a dozen of the boldest remained at the gate trying to complete its
destruction. On these Leonard and Otter opened fire with rifles, but
it was not until three or four of them had fallen that the rest fled to
join their companions beneath the shelter of the sheds.

"Oh! look, look!" said Juanna, pointing to the east.

It was indeed a spectacle never to be forgotten.

The dense reeds, measuring twelve to fifteen feet in height, had been
fired far to the east of the Nest, and as the wind gathered to a gale
and the fire got firmer hold, it rolled down upon the doomed place in
billows and sheets--a sea of flame that sometimes spouted high into the
air and sometimes ran swiftly along the ground.

The reeds crackled and roared like musketry as the fire ate into them,
giving out thick volumes of smoke. At first this smoke had passed above
the spectators, now it ble