‘The seconds went by like ages. I had reckoned the fuse would last, perhaps, seven or eight minutes. They had untied the flask, and it was being passed from hand to hand. ‘Still no sound! ‘With a deep sigh of regret I gave the affair up as a failure—had even turned away—when an explosion like that of an eighteen pounder made me jump. ‘From out of a cloud of dense white smoke came shrieks and screams of agony. I could dimly see bodies—some quite still, and others rolling over and over. ‘By God! gentlemen,’ exclaimed the speaker, interrupting himself emphatically, and with a cruel gleam in his eyes, ‘although afterwards I shot the wretches down in dozens, and always with joy in my heart, yet never with such a complete sense of satisfaction and pleasure as I felt at that moment. ‘As I looked a sharp blaze curled up, spreading broadly, and almost instantly, into a curtain of flame and smoke. ‘The grass was on fire! ‘Never a thought had I given to that. For miles and miles the country was covered with herbage, tall, and dry as tinder. ‘The top of the Grand Stand was about the only safe place now, bar the water, in all that neighbourhood. For a long time I couldn’t see a foot for smoke; but, as with the fire, it rolled away before the wind. I looked towards the Black Waterhole, thinking, of course, that the niggers would have taken to it. To my surprise not one was to be seen. There was the blackened ground, smoking yet, bare, and affording not the slightest cover. ‘The erstwhile shady and graceful tree was a gnarled and withered skeleton. ‘Underneath it, as the haze cleared, I made out four motionless bodies, blacker than the burnt black ashes on which they lay. ‘I waited a bit longer before coming down. But at last, pretty certain that the niggers had cleared out, or better still, been caught in the fire, I crept down the pathway, stiff, sore, and hungry, but with that feeling of vengeful joy in my heart trebly intensified as I passed by the poor, scorched, singed head lying on the ground. ‘Poking about the heap of blankets, clothing, etc., still smouldering, I dropped across a tin of preserved meat—a four pounder. ‘This was luck, if you like. Taking it to the water I finished it to the last scrap, and made the most appreciated meal of a life. ‘I hadn’t gone near the bodies. They were charred, and I was certain they were dead. ‘But, as I finished eating, to my astonishment one fellow got up and staggered straight for me. Snatching up a heavy stick, which happened to be handy, I stood ready to receive him. ‘As he came nearer his face frightened me. ‘It wasn’t a face at all, properly speaking; nor, for the matter of that, a head even. It was simply a mass of grass-ashes and blood—every scrap of hair had been burnt off. From his open mouth protruded a blackened tongue. I dropped my stick, for I saw he was stone-blind—in fact, he was eyeless altogether.