ur men hesitates or turns back, you will
die," and I nodded towards the axe of Umslopogaas. "Moreover, afterwards
She-who-commands will see that others of you die, should you escape in
the fight."

Still they hesitated. Thereon without another word, I produced Zikali's
Great Medicine and held it before their eyes, with the result that the
sight of this ugly thing did what even the threat of death could not do.
They went flat on the ground, every one of them, and swore by Lulala
and by She-who-commands, her priestess, that they would do all I said,
however mad it seemed to them.

"Good," I answered. "Now go back and make ready, and for the rest, by
this time to-morrow we shall know who is or is not mad."

From that moment till the end I had no more trouble with these
Amahagger.

I will get on quickly with the story of this fight whereof the
preliminary details do not matter. At the proper time Goroko went off
with two hundred and fifty men and one of the two Zulus to light the
fires and, at an agreed signal, namely the firing of two shots in rapid
succession by myself, to begin shouting and generally make as much noise
as they could.

We also went off with the remaining three thousand, and before the moon
rose, crept as quietly as ghosts down the right-hand ridge. Being such
a silent folk who were accustomed to move at night and could see in
the dark almost as well as cats, the Amahagger executed this manoeuvre
splendidly, wrapping their spear-blades in bands of dry grass lest light
should glint on them and betray our movements. So in due course we came
to the patch of bush where the ridge widened out about five hundred
yards from the plain beneath, and there lay down in four companies or
regiments, each of them about seven hundred and fifty strong.

Now the moon had risen, but because of the mist which covered the
surface of the plain, we could see nothing of the camp of Rezu which we
knew must be within a thousand yards of us, unless indeed it had been
moved, as the silence seemed to suggest.

This circumstance gave me much anxiety, since I feared lest abandoning
their reputed habits, these Rezuites were also contemplating a night
attack. Umslopogaas, too, was disturbed on the subject, though because
of Goroko and his men whose fires began to twinkle on the opposing ridge
something over a mile away, they could not pass up there without our
knowledge.

Still, for aught I knew there might be other ways of s