"Will they?" said Kettle. "Well, if you want to know, I've got poor old
Brass Pan to square up for yet. I liked that boy." And with that, he set
off running down a path between the walls of grasses.

A negro met him in the narrow cut, yelled with surprise, and turned. He
dropped a spear as he turned, and Kettle picked it up and drove the
blade between his shoulder-blades as he ran. Then on through the
village he raged like a man demented. With what weapons he fought he
never afterward remembered. He slew with whatever came to his hand. The
villagers, wakened up from their torpid sleep, rushed from the grass and
wattle houses on every hand. Kettle in his Berserk rage charged them
whenever they made a stand, till at last all fled from him as though he
were more than human.

Bodies lay upon the ground staring up at the moon; but there were no
living creatures left, though the little sailor, with bared teeth and
panting breath, stood there waiting for them. No; he had cleared the
place, and only one other piece of retribution lay in his power. The
embers of a great fire smouldered in the middle of the clearing, and
with a shudder (as he remembered its purpose) he shovelled up great
handfuls of the glowing charcoal and sowed it broadcast on the dry grass
roofs of the chimbeques. The little crackling flames leaped up at once;
they spread with the quickness of a gunpowder train; and in less than a
minute a great cataract of fire was roaring high into the night.

Then, and not till then, did Captain Kettle think of his own retreat. He
put the three remaining cartridges into the empty chambers of his
revolver, and set off at a jog-trot down the winding path by which he
had come up from the river.