The natives kept up a steady fire upon the front from behind the castor-oil bushes and the densely thronged houses.
With sixteen men of the "Forty Thieves," together with Colonel Abd-el-Kader and Lieutenant Baker, R.N., I directed a heavy fire into the covert, and soon made it too hot for the sharpshooters. I had ordered the blue lights at the commencement of the attack. My black boys, Saat and Bellaal, together with some soldiers, now arrived with a good supply.
Covering their advance with a heavy fire from the sniders, the boys and men rushed forward, and immediately ignited Kabba Rega's large divan.
These active and plucky lads now ran nimbly from hut to hut, and one slight touch of the strong fire of the blue lights was sufficient to insure the ignition of the straw dwellings.
I now sent a party of fifteen sniders, under Lieutenant Ferritch Agha, one of my most courageous officers, with a supply of blue lights, to set fire, to the town on our left flank, and to push on to the spot where the missing Monsoor and Ferritch had fired their rifles.
Every arrangement having been rapidly carried out, the boys and a few men continued to fire the houses on our right flank; and giving the order to advance, our party of sixteen rushed forward into the town.
The right and left flanks were now blazing, and the flames were roaring before the wind. I heard the rattling fire of the sniders under Ferritch Agha on our left, and knowing that both flanks were now thoroughly secured by the conflagration, we dashed straight for Kabba Rega's principal residences and court, driving the enemy before us. Colonel Abd-el-Kader was an excellent officer in action. We quickly surrounded Kabba Rega's premises, and set fire to the enormous straw buildings on all sides.
If he had been at home he would have had a warm reception, but the young coward had fled with all his women before the action had commenced, together with the magic bamba or throne, and the sacred drum.
In a few minutes the conflagration was terrific, as the great court of Kabba Rega blazed in flames seventy or eighty feet high, which the wind drove in vivid forks into the thatch of the adjacent houses.
We now followed the enemy throughout the town, and the sniders told with sensible effect wherever they made a stand. 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.