the part of the Igazipuza to crush and
destroy the king's _impi_, could not at the time be determined. Both
parties, for the moment dazed, now rushed at each other with renewed
access of fury--but it could not last. The numbers of the Igazipuza had
dwindled frightfully; all cohesion among them was at an end. They were
now broken up into groups, still fighting desperately.

"Yield, wizards!" roared Sobuza. "To fight on is death."

"Ha, ha! We laugh at death, leader of the king's hunting-dogs!" came
the jeering reply.

"Taste it, then!" thundered the chief, springing at the largest of these
groups, and, whirling a heavy knobkerrie aloft, for his battle-axe was
broken, he smashed in the skull of the speaker like an eggshell. With a
roar and a rush the king's _impi_ surged forward, overwhelming the now
scattered groups by sheer weight of numbers. The battle was at an end.

In ghastly staring heaps, their splintered weapons still gripped in
their dying throes, still half covered by their hacked shields, the
corpses of the Igazipuza warriors lay, gashed and streaming with blood.
Grimly, sullenly, to the death had they fought, and now there were none
left to fight. The king's troops, too, had suffered severely. Gcopo,
the leader of the Ngobamakosi, had been killed, and Matela, the
sub-chief, was badly wounded with assegai thrusts, and many a staunch
fighting man of that regiment and of the Udhloko had fallen.

"On, on!" cried Sobuza, waving his arm. "The king's work is not yet
done. Where is Ingonyama? Where is Vunawayo?"

A shout of dismay, of baffled fury, answered him. Rolling their eyes
over the groups of slain, the warriors sought the now familiar features
of the fighting leader. In vain. Vunawayo was not among them. Had he
succeeded in breaking through the lines during the confusion caused by
the rush of the cattle? It began to look like it.

Again, roaring out the king's war-cry, the whole force charged eagerly
forward. There stood the small kraal. In a moment it was entirely
surrounded.

"Come forth! come forth!" thundered Sobuza, his voice almost drowned by
the dismal clamour of shrieks and terrified howling kept up by the women
and children hiding away in their huts in terror of their lives. "Come
forth, ere the torch is put in! To linger is death!"

Screaming, grovelling in abject fear, the miserable herd crept forth.

"Spare us, father! Crush us not, Foot of the Elephant! Bend us no