st as we fired and mowed down one swarm, fresh swarms seemed to spring
from the earth and stream over the waggons. Others appeared to grow up
almost beneath our feet as they wormed their way on their faces along
the ground between the wheels, squirmed into the circle, and then rose
suddenly, erect and naked, in front of us. Meanwhile, they yelled and
shouted, clashing their spears and shields. The oxen bellowed. The
rifles volleyed. It was a pandemonium of sound in an orgy of gloom.
Darkness, lurid flame, blood, wounds, death, horror!

Yet, in the midst of all this hubbub, I could not help admiring the cool
military calm and self-control of our Major. His voice rose clear above
the confused tumult. "Steady, boys, steady! Don't fire at random. Pick
each your likeliest man, and aim at him deliberately. That's right;
easy--easy! Shoot at leisure, and don't waste ammunition!"

He stood as if he were on parade, in the midst of this palpitating
turmoil of savages. Some of us, encouraged by his example, mounted the
waggons, and shot from the tops at our approaching assailants.

How long the hurly-burly went on, I cannot say. We fired, fired, fired,
and Kaffirs fell like sheep; yet more Kaffirs rose fresh from the long
grass to replace them. They swarmed with greater ease now over the
covered waggons, across the mangled and writhing bodies of their
fellows; for the dead outside made an inclined plane for the living to
mount by. But the enemy were getting less numerous, I thought, and less
anxious to fight. The steady fire told on them. By-and-by, with a little
halt, for the first time they wavered. All our men now mounted the
waggons, and began to fire on them in regular volleys as they came up.
The evil effects of the surprise were gone by this time; we were acting
with coolness and obeying orders. But several of our people dropped
close beside me, pierced through with assegais.

All at once, as if a panic had burst over them, the Matabele, with one
mind, stopped dead short in their advance and ceased fighting. Till that
moment, no number of deaths seemed to make any difference to them. Men
fell, disabled; others sprang up from the ground by magic. But now, of
a sudden, their courage flagged--they faltered, gave way, broke, and
shambled in a body. At last, as one man, they turned and fled. Many
of them leapt up with a loud cry from the long grass where they were
skulking, flung away their big shields with the white thongs in