VENGEANCE "Treachery! treachery!" screamed Pereira.

"The reeds are fired, and that witch has betrayed us." "Ha! ha! ha! ha!" cried Otter again from his airy perch.

"Treachery! treachery! And what if the slaves are loosed?
And what if the gates be barred ?" Hitherto the mob had been silent in their fear and wonder.

There they stood closely packed, a hundred or more of them, staring first at Otter, then at the advancing flames.

Now they found tongue.
"He is a fiend! Kill him! Storm the slave camp! To the gates!" they yelled in this language and in that.
For many it was their last earthly cry, since at that moment a sheet of flame burst from the rampart of the camp, followed by the boom of the cannon, and six pounds of canister swept through the crowd.