‘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 [162] ]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.