des and lashing tails and
eyeballs wildly rolling, receded in clouds of dust, we were already
close upon the fortified camp of the Amabuna. The wagons seemed to
spout forth flashes of fire, the dust jetted up beneath our feet where
the bullets struck. Our men, too, began to fall; for as we drew nearer
we were in the most deadly range, and the long guns of the Amabuna shot
both strong and true.

Now we raised the war shout, and our moon-shaped formation extended its
horns until the wagon-fort was completely encircled with our men. We
rush forward! _Hau_! it is as the breaking of the sea upon the shore as
we pour over the wagons. But those within shoot into our faces. The
foremost of our ranks drop back. That blaze of fire, the tearing of the
shot, daunts them.

"Turn not!" I cry. "Who will be named coward! On, on! the eye of the
Black Elephant watches his children. Which of them shall it behold
flee?"

Flourishing aloft my shield, I leap over the tongue of a wagon. Others
pour after me. Ha! we are within the enclosure. Then a gun is pointed
full at my chest, and, as the flash spurts forth, I see through it the
countenance of the evil Ibuna, who spoke ill and roughly of the King.

But though I see the flash, the bullet passes over my head unhurt, yet
it hums into the thick of those behind, and there is more than one yell
of death. Now I spring upon this great Ibuna, but before I can strike
him my assegai--the King's Assegai--is dashed from my hand by a clubbed
gun. It has been done by one of their women--a great, ugly, toad-like
witch, with grey hair. But immediately half a dozen spears enter her
body, and she falls yelling. At the same time, under cover of my
shield, I seize the great _umkonto_ again, and close with the leader,
hand to hand. He has a knife--no time has he to load--and we are at too
close quarters for the long gun to be clubbed again. He aims now a
furious kick at me. Ha! is it thus that such vermin fight? Then I leap
upon him, and with one mighty stroke my great assegai lays him open from
the throat downwards.

"_Hau_! dog of the Amabuna," I cried, as he fell, "dost care now that
the smoke of thine ugly carcase should reach the nostrils of the King?"

Now was a terrible medley of Amabuna and children of the Great Great
ONE. The air was black and heavy with smoke, and the jarring crash of
weapons, and the thunder of the shock, as our _impi_ came, thick and
fast, pouring over