The blue lights continued
the work; the roar of flames and the dense volumes of smoke, mingled
with the continued rattle of musketry, and the savage yells of the
natives, swept forward with the breeze, and the capital of Unyoro was a
fair sample of the infernal regions.
The natives were driven out of the town, but the high grass was swarming
with many thousands, who, in the neighbourhood of the station, still
advanced to attack the soldiers.
I now ordered "The Forty" to clear the grass, and a steady fire of
snider rifles soon purged the covert upon which the enemy had relied.
In about an hour and a quarter the battle of Masindi was won. Not a
house remained of the lately extensive town. A vast open space of smoke
and black ashes, with flames flickering in some places where the
buildings had been consumed, and at others forked sheets of fire where
the fuel was still undestroyed, were the only remains of the capital of
Unyoro.
The enemy had fled. Their drums and horns, lately so noisy, were now
silent.
I ordered the bugle to sound "cease firing." We marched through the
scorching streets to our station, where I found my wife in deep
distress.
