ad the Igazipuza elected to choose their own fighting-ground, and
retired to some spot strategically more favourable for resisting the
invaders? Or was there some secret way out of the hollow, known only to
a few, and kept for an emergency such as this? It almost began to look
like it. Sobuza and his captains, however, were not the men to trust to
appearances or to leave anything to chance, and well indeed for them
that such was the case.

They had reached the critical point. A hundred yards further and they
would stand upon the ridge overlooking the hollow. Suddenly the
stillness was broken--broken in a startling manner. There was a crash
of firearms, and from the slope there arose a mass of warriors springing
up as though out of the very earth. Covered by their great war-shields,
the broad spear gripped in the right hand, they charged like lightning
upon the right flank of the king's force, and the roar of their
ferocious blood-shout went up as the roar of a legion of tigers.

Prepared as they were, the surprise, the terrible impetuosity of the
charge, momentarily staggered the untried and youthful warriors of the
Ngobamakosi. It almost seemed as though they must give way. But Gcopo,
their leader, was the right man in the right place.

"Strike, children of the king! Death to the _abatagati_!" he thundered,
waving his great shield as he sprang to meet the onrushing horde,
"_Usutu_! _'Su-tu_!"

"Igazi--pu--za!" roared the latter, answering the king's war-cry with
their own wild slogan. And then as the rival forces met in jarring
shock there fell a silence, save for the flutter and crash of shields,
the scuffle of feet, the gasp of deep-drawn breaths, the shiver of
spears, and the thud of falling bodies. It was all done in a moment.

By hurling his whole force upon that of the daring foe, Sobuza could
have crushed it in a very few minutes. But that astute leader knew
better. He saw at a glance that the attacking Igazipuza, though better
men, hardly equalled in numbers the company of the Ngobamakosi with
which they were engaged. So he passed a peremptory word to the
remainder of his force to hold itself in reserve, and his strategy was
justified, for almost immediately another band of the enemy arose with
equally startling suddenness, and fell furiously upon his left flank.

In obedience to a mysterious signal, the king's _impi_ divided. Half
the Udhloko hurled themselves to the support of the wing fi