Ten minutes or so later Babemba arrived with about fifty men, all the
Mazitu soldiers who were left in the town. He reported that he had
held the north gate as long as he could in order to gain time, and
that the Arabs were breaking it in. I begged him to order the soldiers
to pile up stones as a defence against the bullets and to lie down
behind them. This he went to do.
Then, after a pause, we saw a large body of the Arabs who had effected
an entry, advancing down the central street towards us. Some of them
had spears as well as guns, on which they carried a dozen or so of
human heads cut from the Mazitus who had been killed, waving them
aloft and shouting in triumph. It was a sickening sight, and one that
made me grind my teeth with rage. Also I could not help reflecting
that ere long our heads might be upon those spears. Well, if the worst
came to the worst I was determined that I would not be taken alive to
be burned in a slow fire or pinned over an ant-heap, a point upon
which the others agreed with me, though poor Brother John had scruples
as to suicide, even in despair.
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