Dick Sands the Boy Captain by Jules Verne — Read

On the following morning the town of Kazonnde presented an aspect of unwonted desolation. Awe-struck at the event of the previous evening, the natives had all shut themselves up in their huts. That a monarch who was to be assumed as of divine origin should perish with one of his ministers by so horrible a death was a thing wholly unparalleled in their experience. Some of the elder part of the community remembered having taken part in certain cannibal preparations, and were aware that the cremation of a human body is no easy matter, yet here was a case in which two men had been all but utterly consumed without any extraneous application. Here was a mystery that baffled all their comprehension.

Old Alvez had also retired to the seclusion of his own residence; having been warned by Negoro that he would probably be held responsible for the occurrence, he deemed it prudent to keep in retirement. Meanwhile Negoro industriously circulated the report that the king's death had been brought about by supernatural means reserved by the great Manitoo solely for his elect, and that it was sacred fire that had proceeded from his body. The superstitious natives readily received this version of the affair, and at once proceeded to honour Moene Loonga with funeral rites worthy of one thus conspicuously elevated to the rank of the gods. The ceremony (which entailed an expenditure of human blood incredible except that it is authenticated by Cameron and other African travellers) was just the opportunity that Negoro required for carrying out his designs against Dick, whom he intended to take a prominent part in it.