Bacheeta was an eyewitness
of this horrible act, and testified to the courage of Sali, who, while
under the torture, cried out to his friends in the crowd, warning them
to fly and save themselves, as he was a dead man, and they would share
his fate should they remain. Some escaped, including Fowooka, but many
were massacred on the spot, and the woman Bacheeta was captured by
Kamrasi and subsequently sent by him to the Turks' camp at Faloro, as
already described. From that day unremitting warfare was carried on
between Kamrasi and the island chiefs; the climax was their defeat, and
the capture of their women, through the assistance of the Turks.
Kamrasi's delight at the victory knew no bounds; ivory poured into the
camp, and a hut was actually filled with elephants' tusks of the largest
size. Eddrees, the leader of the Turks' party, knowing that the victory
was gained by the aid of his guns, refused to give up the captives on
the demand of the king, claiming them as prisoners belonging to Ibrahim,
and declining any arguments upon the matter until his master should
arrive in the country. Kamrasi urged that, although the guns had been of
great service, no prisoners could have been captured without the aid of
his canoes, that had been brought by land, dragged all the way from
Karuma by hundreds of his people in readiness for the attack upon the
islands.
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