the spear.
That is the tale--the tale of the nation. Nobody knows.
Come behold. That is the tale--the tale of Matyobane."

The barbaric strophes rolled in a wave of sound, rising higher with each
repetition, and to the measured accompaniment of the dull thunder of
stamping feet, the effect was weirdly grand in the darkness.

"It makes something very like nonsense if turned into English,"
whispered John Ames, in reply to his comrade's query, "but it contains
allusions well understood by themselves. There isn't anything
particularly bloodthirsty about it, either. That sort of hiss, every
now and then, is what we shall hear if we get to close quarters."

"Their kind of war-whoop, maybe. I recollect at Wounded Knee Creek,
when Big Foot's band made believe to come in--"

But what the speaker recollected at Wounded Knee Creek was destined
never to be imparted to John Ames, for at that juncture a peremptory
word was passed for silence in the ranks.

Now the dawn was beginning to show, revealing eager faces, set and grim,
and rifles were grasped anew. Then what happened nobody seemed to know
individually. A straggling volley was poured into the advancing troop
from the crest of the rise, and the bugle rang out the order to charge.
As John Ames had described it, there followed a sort of "hooroosh" in
which each man was acting very much to his own hand, as, the troop
having whirled over the ridge, the order was given to dismount, and the
men stood pouring volley upon volley after the loose masses of flying
savages.

This, however, was not destined to last. The first shock over of
surprise and dismay, the Matabele dropped down into cover and began to
return the fire with considerable spirit. They were in some force, too,
and it behoved the attacking whites to seize what shelter they could,
each man taking advantage of whatever lay to his hand, whether stone or
bush or ant heap, or even a depression in the ground.

Then, for a space, things grew very lively. The sharp spit of rifles
was never silent, with the singing of missiles overhead. The enemy had
the advantage in the matter of cover, and now and then a dark form,
gliding like a snake among the grass and thorns, would be seen to make a
convulsive spring and fall over kicking. One trooper was shot dead, and
more than one wounded, and meanwhile masses of the enemy could be
descried working up to the south-west. Reinforcements? It looked like
it, rememb