spear. Umslopogaas moved his body but not his legs, so that
the blow missed him, and next instant Inkosi-kaas crashed through
headpiece, hair and skull, and the man's corpse was rattling
down the steps. As he dropped, his round hippopotamus-hide shield
fell from his hand on to the marble, and the Zulu stooped down
and seized it, still chanting as he did so.

In another second the sturdy Kara had also slain a man, and then
began a scene the like of which has not been known to me.

Up rushed the assailants, one, two, three at a time, and as fast
as they came, the axe crashed and the sword swung, and down they
rolled again, dead or dying. And ever as the fight thickened,
the old Zulu's eye seemed to get quicker and his arm stronger.
He shouted out his war-cries and the names of chiefs whom he
had slain, and the blows of his awful axe rained straight and
true, shearing through everything they fell on. There was none
of the scientific method he was so fond of about this last immortal
fight of his; he had no time for it, but struck with his full
strength, and at every stroke a man sank in his tracks, and went
rattling down the marble steps.

They hacked and hewed at him with swords and spears, wounding
him in a dozen places till he streamed red with blood; but the
shield protected his head and the chain-shirt his vitals, and
for minute after minute, aided by the gallant Zu-Vendi, he still
held the stair.

At last Kara's sword broke, and he grappled with a foe, and they
rolled down together, and he was cut to pieces, dying like the
brave man that he was.

Umslopogaas was alone now, but he never blenched or turned.
Shouting out some wild Zulu battle-cry, he beat down a foe, ay,
and another, and another, till at last they drew back from the
slippery blood-stained steps, and stared at him with amazement,
thinking that he was no mortal man.

The wall of marble block was four feet six high now, and hope
rose in my teeth as I leaned there against it a miserable helpless
log, and ground my teeth, and watched that glorious struggle.
I could do no more for I had lost my revolver in the battle.

And old Umslopogaas, he leaned too on his good axe, and, faint
as he was with wounds, he mocked them, he called them 'women'
-- the grand old warrior, standing there one against so many!
And for a breathing space none would come against him, notwithstanding
Nasta's exhortations, till at last old Agon, who, to do him justice,
was a