au_! we were glad to let them go--
and after making a show of pursuit we retreated, battered, wearied, and
utterly disheartened, to the heights above the rift, where we had lain
concealed at first. Some there were among us who declared we ought to
rejoice, for that, great as had been our losses, still we had beaten
back the might of Dingane, who in future would leave us in peace. But I
knew better than that, wherefore I would not withdraw the remnant of our
forces from that position, but watched and waited.

Now when the retreat began, Ngubazana the Gaza, deeming it a rout, had
called a number of young warriors of The Scorpions to follow him, and
this band of hotheads had plunged into the thickest of the Zulu ranks.
But these turned. _Whau_! That was no rout, and in a moment there was
not one of those young fools left standing. But Ngubazana, who was much
older and should have known better, was the last to fall, and he fell
fighting, for quite a ring of Silwane's people went down before his
spear. At last they threw a heavy knobstick at him, which felled him,
so that he dropped upon the slain which he had heaped up there, and they
made an end of him.

Thus he died the death of a warrior, fighting bravely to the last; and
it was a strange death for one who had left his country to become the
follower and servant of a teacher of peace.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE BATTLE OF THE THREE RIFTS.

With gloom around our hearts, and mightily discouraged, we lay and
rested, and soon there came down to us a runner from Mgwali's outpost to
tell that an immense _impi_ was advancing from the direction in which
the defeated and retreating Zulu force was last seen, and then we knew,
if we had not known before, that, as we rested there with our shattered
and broken remnant, it was but for a breathing space before renewing a
most desperate conflict which could have but one ending. Beneath, the
hollow was heaped up with corpses--the hillsides, too. There they lay,
the fiercest, bravest of our warriors, and of those of Dingane, likewise
of ours the poorest; for our regiments of incorporated slaves could not
stand before the stern might of Zulu, but were swept away like sheep,
lying as they had fallen, in a fleeing attitude. Disheartened,
dispirited now, we waited for the end. Even Kalipe's _impi_, did it
arrive, could hardly avail to turn the fortune of war now; yet we were
resolved, determined as ever, that if a new nation