was strewn with a groaning,
writhing heap of humanity.

With a roar like a wild beast, Carhayes sprang from his cover and,
wrenching a heavy knob-kerrie from the hand of a dead Kafir, dashed
among the fallen and struggling foe, striking to right and left,
braining all those who showed the slightest sign of resistance or even
of life. A Berserk ferocity seemed to have seized the man. His hair
and beard fairly bristled, his eyes glared, as he stood erect, whirling
the heavy club, spattered and shiny with blood and brains. He roared
again:

"Ho, dogs! Come and stand before the lion! Come, feel his bite--who
dares? Ha, ha!" he laughed, bringing the kerrie down with a sickening
crash upon the head of a prostrate warrior whom he had detected in the
act of making a last desperate stab at him with an assegai--shattering
the skull to atoms. "Come, stand before me, cowards. Come, and be
ground to atoms."

But to this challenge no answer was returned. There was a strange
silence among the enemy. What did it portend? That he was about to
throw up the game and withdraw? No such luck. His strength was too
great, and he was burning with vengeful rage at the loss of so many men.
It could only mean that he was planning some new and desperate move.

"I say, Milne, lend us a few cartridges; I've shot away all mine."

Eustace, without a word, handed half a dozen to the speaker. The
latter, a fine young fellow of twenty-one, was enjoying his first
experience in the noble game of war. He had been blazing away
throughout the day as though conscious of the presence of a waggon-load
of ammunition in the patrol.

"Thanks awfully--Ah-h!"

The last ejaculation escaped him in a kind of shuddering sigh. His
features grew livid, and the cartridges which he had just grasped
dropped from his grasp as he sank to the ground with scarcely a
struggle. A Kafir had crawled up behind him, and had stabbed him
between the shoulders with a broad-bladed assegai--right through to the
heart. A deep vengeful curse went up from his comrades, and they looked
wildly around for an object on which to exact retribution. In vain.
The wily foe was not going to show himself.

But the incident threw a new light upon the state of affairs, and a very
lurid one it was. Several had run out of ammunition, but had refrained
from saying so lest the fact, becoming known, should discourage the
others. Now it was of no use disguising matters further. Th