With a
roar of rage, several of his comrades, unable to contain themselves,
fired a volley, but with discrimination. The remainder of Somala's
clansmen fell dead, leaving himself and the three white men alone.

"My last shot!" exclaimed the doctor, calmly. "God forgive us if
there's sin in what we do!" And placing the muzzle of his revolver
against his heart, he pressed the trigger. His body, instantaneously
lifeless, sank heavily, but in doing so fell against Haviland's legs.
He, losing his balance, stumbled heavily against Oakley--upsetting him.
A wild stagger, then a fall. Before they could rise, a dozen of their
enemies had flung themselves upon them with lightning-like swiftness,
pinning them to the earth.

Somala, who had expended his last shot, not on himself, was laying about
him vigorously with his ataghan. But, wounded in several places,
weakened with loss of blood and exhaustion, he too was at last
overpowered. The victory was complete.

And the scene of it had now become one or indescribable horror--a very
nightmare of blood, and hacked corpses in every conceivable attitude of
agony and repulsion. And with it all came the convulsive shrieks and
groans of a few of the miserable bearers, who had been taken alive, and
whom the black contingent was amusing itself roasting to death in the
open ground outside the tree belt. Within, the more civilised section
of the slave-hunters was looting the stores and property of the
expedition. They tore open bales, and battered in boxes and cases. But
the authority of Mushad was absolute, and his commands speedily infused
an element of method into the looting process.

Helpless, swathed in coils of thongs wound round them from head to foot,
to the accompaniment of many blows and kicks, the unhappy prisoners lay.

"Behold, ye dogs!" jeered one of those who guarded them. "Behold! Is
it not good to look upon the face of a friend once more? Behold!"

He pointed to the head of the unfortunate doctor, which, ghastly and
dripping, was being borne about on the point of a spear. Raising eyes
dull with despair and horror, they saw it and envied him. He was at
peace now, or, at worst, was in more merciful hands than those of these
fiends; while they themselves--the horrible tortures which had been
decreed for them by the slaver chief, and to which end alone they had
been spared--why, the bare thought was enough to turn the brain.

"Is there no way, Oakley," said