e got it shortly, as will be seen.

Now the Zulus began to sing again--

"We have caught the White Spirit, my brother! my brother!
Iron-Tongue whispered of him, he smelt him out, my brother.
Now the Maboona are ours--they are already dead, my brother."

So that treacherous villain Indaba-zimbi had betrayed me. Suddenly the
chief of the Impi, a grey-haired man named Sususa, held up his assegai,
and instantly there was silence. Then he spoke to some indunas who stood
near him. Instantly they ran to the right and left down the first
line, saying a word to the captain of each company as they passed
him. Presently they were at the respective ends of the line, and
simultaneously held up their spears. As they did so, with an awful
roar of "Bulala Amaboona"--"Slay the Boers," the entire line, numbering
nearly a thousand men, bounded forward like a buck startled from its
form, and rushed down upon the little laager. It was a splendid sight
to see them, their assegais glittering in the sunlight as they rose and
fell above their black shields, their war-plumes bending back upon the
wind, and their fierce faces set intently on the foe, while the solid
earth shook beneath the thunder of their rushing feet. I thought of my
poor friends the Dutchmen, and trembled. What chance had they against so
many?

Now the Zulus, running in the shape of a bow so as to wrap the laager
round on three sides, were within seventy yards, and now from every
waggon broke tongues of fire. Over rolled a number of the Umtetwa,
but the rest cared little. Forward they sped straight to the laager,
striving to force a way in. But the Boers plied them with volley after
volley, and, packed as the Zulus were, the elephant guns loaded with
slugs and small shot did frightful execution. Only one man even got on
to a waggon, and as he did so I saw a Boer woman strike him on the head
with an axe. He fell down, and slowly, amid howls of derision from the
two lines on the hill-side, the Zulus drew back.

"Let us go, father!" shouted the soldiers on the slope, among whom I
was, to their chief, who had come up. "You have sent out the little
girls to fight, and they are frightened. Let us show them the way."

"No, no!" the chief Sususa answered, laughing. "Wait a minute and the
little girls will grow to women, and women are good enough to fight
against Boers!"

The attacking Zulus heard the mockery of their fellows, and rushed
forward again with a roar