In all the village there was not a single house left standing. Some were reduced to mere shapeless heaps of blackened ruins, while in others the charred skeleton of a roof yet rested on the scorched and cracked clay walls. The compound fences were reduced to lines of ashes; cooking pots stood over extinct fires; and half-burnt stools and wooden utensils lay scattered about among the ruins. And everywhere--in the streets, in the compounds, and by the ruined houses--the ground was literally strewn with corpses. In every attitude of death, in every stage of decay and dismemberment; bloated by the heat, shrivelled by the sun, hacked at by vultures, torn limb from limb by wild beasts: the loathsome harvest of war lay poisoning the air with the stale and horrid effluvium. Glossy-coated carrion beetles crept busily over them, swarms of flies hummed in the air above them, and, in one place, a broad shining stream of driver ants flowed through the village like a river of jet, leaving in its track clean-picked skeletons already bleached to the whiteness of chalk. As we stood surveying these dreadful relics, the vultures began to drop down by twos and threes, watching us warily as they snapped up their grisly morsels; and when we moved up the village and came round a pile of ruins, we disturbed at their ghastly meal a troop of hyænas, which shuffled away and stood at a little distance with their shoulders hunched up, grinning at us and snarling with titters of idiotic laughter. The village had been very completely looted by the enemy, but we found, nevertheless, in the remains of the plantation, a few bunches of plantains, and one or two half-rotten papaws, and, having secured these, we stole stealthily and guiltily out of the village and hurried away along the road, not a little affected by the awful spectacle we had witnessed. It was now past midday, and I began to consider very earnestly how and where I was to pass the night, for I had definitely made up my mind that I would not spend it in the society of Annan and his gang of ruffians. It was now clear that they were of one mind in their desire to be rid of me, and it was equally evident that Annan had already appointed himself my sole executor and legatee. This being the case, it would be obvious madness for me to trust myself asleep in their company, and I had now to settle on the manner in which I should escape from them and yet find my way to my destination.