ing of weapons and shields, the
blows and the gasping, and the spouting blood. It could not last--it
could not last.

Even the desperate valour of the Igazipuza, together with the fact that
they were on higher ground, for they had charged down upon the king's
_impi_, could not avail for long against the superior numbers of the
latter. Vunawayo, finding his efforts against Sobuza unavailing, and
noting that more and more of the latter's warriors were free to come to
their chief's assistance, sprang suddenly back, and waving his shield,
gave out in thunder tones the order to retreat.

But if the king's troops imagined that victory was theirs they were
destined to be undeceived. All this while the Igazipuza had been
pressed farther and farther back until they had nearly reached the top
of the ridge, and now as they poured over this in their retreat, through
the point where the slopes narrowed to a kind of gateway, the pursuers
thundering on their rear were met by a small but fresh force which had
been placed there to cover the retreat of the bulk.

"By the head-ring of the Great Great One, but these are _abatagati_
indeed!" growled Sobuza at this fresh evidence of the desperate
pertinacity of the enemy. "At them, my children! Hew them down!"

And shouting the king's war-cry he leaped upon the opposing Igazipuza.

If the fighting had been fierce before, it was doubly so now. This band
of heroes in their way, savage, bloodthirsty freebooters as they were,
had been placed there in this latter-day Thermopylae, to die--to die in
order that the rest might renew the combat under more favourable
conditions, and what more formidable foe can there be than a cornered
combatant? They went down at last before the Udhloko spears, but the
struggle was a fearful one, the result almost man for man. When the
victors, panting, bleeding, maddened with bloodshed and fury, stood on
the ridge looking down into the hollow upon the Igazipuza kraal, those
who had originally withstood them, and of whom they were in pursuit, had
disappeared. This would mean hunting them down--hunting down a cornered
and desperate foe who had not hesitated to assume the offensive and
attack a force twice as strong as itself, and who still mustered in
sufficient numbers to be of formidable menace; hunting down such as
these, at bay among the bush and rocks of their own stronghold. A
redoubtable undertaking indeed.

There lay the great kraal, apparently