Seeing them come the scattered Arabs began to fire at them, killing
some, but thereby revealing their own hiding-places. At these the
slaves rushed. They hurled themselves upon the Arabs; they tore them,
they dashed out their brains in such fashion that within another five
minutes quite two-thirds of them were dead; and the rest, of whom we
took some toll with our rifles as they bolted from cover, were in full
flight.
It was a terrible vengeance. Never did I witness a more savage scene
than that of these outraged men wreaking their wrongs upon their
tormentors. I remember that when most of the Arabs had been killed and
a few were escaped, the slaves found one, I think it was the captain
of the gang, who had hidden himself in a little patch of dead reeds
washed up by the stream. Somehow they managed to fire these; I expect
that Hans, who had remained discreetly in the background after the
fighting began, emerged when it was over and gave them a match. In due
course out came the wretched Arab. Then they flung themselves on him
as marching ants do upon a caterpillar, and despite his cries for
mercy, tore him to fragments, literally to fragments.
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