Read "The Exiles of Faloo" by Barry Pain online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Many of the rebels had fallen to the revolvers of the white men at bay, and many more to the rifles of the patrol. Two of their leaders had perished before their eyes, and the death of one of them, slave to the fixed eyes and whispered words of the King, had seemed to them miraculous. How could they have been mad enough to contend against such a power? Spiritless and unarmed, thrust on by the patrol with the butt of the rifle, they staggered down the slopes to their huts on the beach.
But the King knew well enough how dangerously incomplete his victory was. The youngest of the three brothers had got clear away, and he had taken men with him. They should have been followed of course, but the King had been reluctant to spare a man until he was certain of the main body of the rebels. The first sign of his mistake was a cloud of smoke rolling up from his offices and stores on the beach below. The King thought of his spirit-vats and galloped off.