If I had really been insane during those two months, if some cloud had been on me, some demoniacal force dragging me on, the cloud and insanity vanished and the constraint was over in one moment, when that hellish enterprise was completed.

It was the sight of an old woman, lying where she had been struck down, the fire of the blazing house lighting her wide-open glassy eyes and white hair dabbled in blood, which suddenly, as by a miracle, wrought this change in my brain.

For they were all dead at last, old and young, all who had lighted the fire round that great green tree in which Rima had taken refuge, who had danced round the blaze, shouting: "Burn! burn!" At the moment my glance fell on that prostrate form I paused and stood still, trembling like a person struck with a sudden pang in the heart, who thinks that his last moment has come to him unawares.

After a while I slunk away out of the great circle of firelight into the thick darkness beyond.

Instinctively I turned towards the forests across the savannah--my forest again; and fled away from the noise and the sight of flames, never pausing until I found myself within the black shadow of the trees.