omewhere before them. As he turned a corner made by a
projection in the wall, a dark hand seized him by the neck, and he
was on his back, with a roaring sound in his ears, and a feeling of
suffocation.

"What's the matter?" he gasped presently, when the grip on his
throat relaxed.

"Can you stand?"

"Yes, of course." Compton got up. "You look queer."

"Feel queer," said Venning. "Enough to make a chap queer to see you
go down like that with a big black on top of you."

"Where is he?" and Compton hunted for his rifle.

"Shot him; but, for all I knew, I might have shot you. He fell in
the river. Perhaps there are more of them hiding."

"You shot him?"

"Yes--go along; but for goodness' sake don't let another one jump on
you."

Compton gripped his friend's hand, then went on, very cautiously
this time, for a little way, until he heard the crack of the
Express, followed by the Hunter's bull voice calling on the men to
"stand fast." He dashed on.

"We are coming," yelled Venning, in a voice that sounded very
youthful; but keen ears heard the high treble, and to them it
brought comfort.

"The chiefs white men," was the cry that rose, that reached Mr. Hume
as he fought coolly, warily, in a crisis of the battle, knowing
that, if he gave back an inch, the men behind him would bolt, and
Hassan's horde would swarm into the valley.

"Hurrah, my brave lads!" he roared. "You there behind, meet the
white men and lead them up to the place where I first stood."

"Yebo Inkose! (yes, chief)" cried a Zulu of the Angoni.

Thus the chief's "white men" were met in the gorge by a dark figure
panting heavily, who led them through other dark forms, some lying
groaning, others silent--led them up to a ledge that overlooked the
enemy.

"What now?" asked Compton, looking at the Zulu, and in the better
light noticing the wounds on his head and left arm.

The Zulu pointed down. "Fire, O white men, between that tree and the
rock. There they are thickest."

The two rifles flashed out simultaneously.

"Hurrah!" roared the Hunter from below. "Give them the whole
magazine."

"Empty the magazines," said Venning between his teeth; and the Lee-
Metfords poured out a little rain of thin bullets into a space
between the tree and the rock.

"Yavuma!" cried the Zulu.

"Yavuma!" roared the Hunter. "Stand firm, my children!"

The Zulu knelt on the brink of the ledge and peered down into the
gloom, out of which came the shouts of the