.

Thus was I rescued from death by the intelligence and fidelity of
a four-footed creature. Doubtless in my semi-conscious state
that resulted from shock, weariness and sun-stroke, I had all the
while headed sub-consciously and without any definite object for
the Black Kloof. When I was within a few miles of it I was
stunned by the lightning which ran down the rifle to the ground,
though not actually struck. Then the dog, which had escaped,
played its part, wandering about the country to find help for me,
and so I was saved.

Now of the long months that followed I have little to tell. They
were not unhappy in their way, for week by week I felt myself
growing stronger, though very slowly. There was a path, steep,
difficult and secret, which could be gained through one of the
caves in the precipice, not that in which I slept. This path ran
up a water-cut kloof through a patch of thorns to a flat
tableland that was part of the Ceza stronghold. By it, when I
had gained sufficient strength, sometimes we used to climb to the
plateau, and there take exercise. It was an agreeable change from
the stifling atmosphere of the Black Kloof. The days were very
dull, for we were as much out of the world as though we had been
marooned on a desert island. Still from time to time we heard of
the progress of the war through Nombe, for Zikali I saw but
seldom.

She told of disasters to the English, of the death of a great
young Chief who was deserted by his companions and died fighting
bravely--afterwards I discovered that this was the Prince
Imperial of France--of the advance of our armies, of defeats
inflicted upon Cetewayo's impis, and finally of the destruction
of the Zulus on the battlefield of Ulundi, where they hurled
themselves by thousands upon the British square, to be swept away
by case-shot and the hail of bullets. This battle, by the way,
the Zulus call, not Ulundi or Nodwengu, for it was fought in
front of Panda's old kraal of that name, but Ocwecweni, which
means--"the fight of the sheet-iron fortress." I suppose they
give it this name because the hedge of bayonets, flashing in the
sunlight, reminded them of sheet-iron. Or it may be because
these proved as impenetrable as would have done walls of iron.
At any rate they dashed their naked bodies against the storm of
lead and fell in heaps, only about a dozen of our men being
killed, as the little graveyard in the centre of the square
entrenchment, about