thy hot place hotter than yonder fire?" said
the king.

He answered that he did not know, but the fire was certainly hot.

"Then I will show thee how I will come out of it if ever I go to lie
in such a fire--ay, though it be ten times as big and fierce. Ho! my
children!" he cried to the soldiers, and, springing up, "You see yonder
fire. Run swiftly and stamp it flat with your feet. Where there was fire
let there be blackness and ashes."

Now the White Man lifted his hands and prayed Dingaan not to do this
thing that should be the death of many, but the king bade him be silent.
Then he turned his eyes upward and prayed to his gods. For a moment
also the soldiers looked on each other in doubt, for the fire raged
furiously, and spouts of flame shot high toward the heaven, and above
it and about it the hot air danced. But their captain called to them
loudly: "Great is the king! Hear the words of the king, who honours you!
Yesterday we ate up the Amaboona--it was nothing, they were unarmed.
There is a foe more worthy of our valour. Come, my children, let us wash
in the fire--we who are fiercer than the fire! Great is the king who
honours us!"

Thus he spoke and ran forward, and, with a roar, after him sprang the
soldiers, rank by rank. They were brave men indeed; moreover, they knew
that if death lay before them death also awaited him who lagged behind,
and it is far better to die with honour than ashamed. On they went, as
to the joy of battle, their captain leading them, and as they went they
sang the Ingomo, the war-chant of the Zulu. Now the captain neared the
raging fire; we saw him lift his shield to keep off its heat. Then he
was gone--he had sprung into the heart of the furnace, and but little
of him was ever found again. After him went the first company. In they
went, beating at the flames with their ox-hide shields, stamping them
out with their naked feet, tearing down the burning logs and casting
them aside. Not one man of that company lived, my father; they fell
down like moths which flutter through a candle, and where they fell they
perished. But after them came other companies, and it was well for those
in this fight who were last to grapple with the foe. Now a great smoke
was mixed with the flame, now the flame grew less and less, and the
smoke more and more; and now blackened men, hairless, naked, and
blistered, white with the scorching of the fire, staggered out on the
farther side of the flames, falling