ff returning: he
saluted, and said, '_The camp is in the possession of the enemy, sir!_'
None who heard those words will forget them, and few men can have
experienced a more terrible shock than that which fell upon the English
general in this hour.

[Illustration]

Slowly, and with all military precaution, Lord Chelmsford and his force
moved onward, till at length, when darkness had fallen, they encamped
beneath the fatal hill of Isandhlwana. Here, momentarily expecting to be
attacked, they remained all night amid the wreck, the ruin, and the
dead, but not till the following dawn did they learn the magnitude of
the disaster that had overtaken our arms. Then they saw, and in silence
marched from that fatal field, heading for Rorke's Drift, and leaving
its mutilated dead to the vulture and the jackal.

* * * * *

Now let us follow the fate of the mob of fugitives, who, driven back
from the waggon road by the Undi, plunged desperately into the donga
near it, the sole avenue of retreat which had not been besieged by the
foe, in the hope that they might escape the slaughter by following the
friendly natives who were mixed up with them. How many entered on that
terrible race for life is not known, but it is certain that very few won
through. Indeed, it is said that, with the exception of some natives, no
single man who was not mounted lived to pass the Buffalo River. For five
miles or more they rode and ran over paths that a goat would have found
it difficult to keep his footing on, while by them, and mixed up with
them, went the destroying Zulus. Very soon the guns became fixed among
the boulders, and one by one the artillerymen were assegaied. On went
the survivors, hopeless yet hoping. Now a savage sprang on this man, and
now on that; the assegai flashed up, a cry of agony echoed among the
rocks, and a corpse fell heavily to the red earth. Still, those whom it
pleased Providence to protect struggled forward, clinging to their
horses' manes as they leaped from boulder to boulder, till at length
they came to a cliff, beneath which the Buffalo rolled in flood. Down
this cliff they slid and stumbled, few of them can tell how; then,
driven to it by the pitiless spears, they plunged into the raging river.
Many were drowned in its waters, some were shot in the stream, some were
stabbed upon the banks, yet a few, clinging to the manes and tails of
their horses, gained the opposite shore in safety