d with nothing but a knobkerrie, with which he struck
and parried with lightning-like rapidity. His assailants were mostly
armed with two kerries apiece, and were pressing him hard; albeit with
such odds in their favour they seemed loth to come to close quarters,
remaining, or springing back, just beyond the reach of those terrible
whirling blows. To add to the shindy, all the women and children in the
kraal were shrilly yelling out jeers at the retreating adversary, and
three or four snarling curs lent their yapping to the uproar.

"_Yauw_! great Zulu!" ran the jeers. "We fear you not! Why should we?
Ha-ha! We are free people-free people. We are not Cetywayo's dogs.
Ha-ha!"

"Dogs!" roared the tall man, his eyes flashing with the light of battle.
"Dogs of _Amakafula_! By the head-ring of the Great Great One, were I
but armed as ye are, I would keep the whole of this kraal howling like
dogs the long night through--I, Sobuza, of the Aba Qulusi--I alone.
Ha!"

And with a ferocious downward sweep of his kerrie, he knocked the
foremost of his assailants off his legs, receiving in return a numbing
blow on the shoulder from the stick of another. All the warrior blood
of the martial Zulu was roused, maddened, by the shock. He seemed to
gain in stature, and his eyes blazed, as roaring out the war-shout of
his race, the deep-throated "Usutu!" he abandoned the offensive and
hurled himself like a thunderbolt upon his four remaining adversaries.
These, not less agile than himself, scattered a moment previous to
closing in upon him from all sides at once. At the same time he was
seen to totter and pitch heavily forward. The man whom he had
previously swept off his feet had, lying there, gripped him firmly by
the legs.

Nothing could save him now! With a ferocious shout the others sprang
forward, their kerries uplifted. In a moment he would be beaten to a
jelly, when--

Down went the foremost like a felled ox, before the straight crushing
blow of an English fist; while at the same time a deft left-hander met
the next with such force as to send him staggering back a dozen paces.
Wrenching the two sticks from the fallen man, Gerard pushed them into
the hands of the great Zulu. The latter, finding himself thus evenly
armed, raised the war-shout "Usutu!" and charged his two remaining
assailants. These, seeing how the tables had been turned, did not wait.
They ran away as fast as their legs could carry them.

"_Whou