ke
they held their lives, at any rate, but should the enemy without win the
day, why, then, they would taste the steel in common with their present
oppressors. The Ba-gcatya never spared.

Now the battle-rank of the latter underwent a change. From each end of
the great crescent "horns" shot out, extending farther and farther.
Still the numbers of the main body seemed in no wise to diminish. The
rock-crowned mound was encircled by a wall of living men.

Then the silence was rent asunder, and that in most appalling fashion.
From twenty thousand fierce throats in concert went up the
war-shout--horrible, terrifying--combining the frenzied roars of a
legion of maniacs with the snarls and baying of hounds tearing down
their prey. One there had heard it before, but not in such awful,
soul-curdling volume as this.

And then, with heads bent, shields thrust forward, broad spears in
strong ready grip, the whole circle of the Ba-gcatya host came surging
up the slope.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SIGN.

Crash! crash! A long, detonating roar, then crash! again. The
rock-circle is a perfect ring of flame, sheeting forth in red jets
athwart the hanging sulphurous smoke. Death-yells are mingling with the
fearful war-shout. Shields are flung high in the air, and dark bodies,
leaping, fall forward upon their faces, to be trampled into lifelessness
as their own comrades tread them down, not pausing, rushing over them as
they lie.

"No, no! no quicker," reproves Hazon, who is directing here, where the
assailant's force is the strongest, namely, the main body, the _isifuba_
or breast of the _impi_. "Fire steadily and low, as before, but no
quicker."

His followers growl a ready assent. They are unmitigated ruffians, but
terrible and determined fighters. The fanatical fatalism of the
Mohammedan creed renders them utterly impervious to panic. They keep up
a steady, quick-loading fire into the charging Ba-gcatya, and, aiming
low, every shot tells, committing fearful havoc among the serried,
onrushing masses. Yet those terrible warriors are dauntless. Whole lines
go down; still, others surge over them, and now the charge is but two
hundred yards from the line of rocks.

The fore ranks hesitate, then come to a halt, crumpling back upon those
behind them. The slavers, with a shrill, ringing yell, seeing their
opportunity, pour a frightfully raking volley into the momentarily
confused mass. Shields are clashed together, spears wildly wa