om the first line of walls took refuge in the second, where
I stood myself, encouraging them, and there the fight raged fiercely.
Occasionally parties of the enemy would force a passage, only to perish
on the hither side beneath the Butiana spears. But still they kept
it up, and I saw that, fight as we would, we were doomed. We were
altogether outnumbered, and to make matters worse, fresh bodies
of soldiers were pouring across the plain to the assistance of our
assailants. So I made up my mind to direct a retreat into the caves,
and there expire in a manner as heroic as circumstances would allow; and
while mentally lamenting my hard fate and reflecting on my sins I fought
away like a fiend. It was then, I remember, that I shot my friend the
captain of our escort of the previous day. He had caught sight of
me, and making a vicious dig at my stomach with a spear (which I
successfully dodged), shouted out, or rather began to shout out, one of
his unpleasant allusions to the 'Thing that----' He never got as far as
'bites,' because I shot him after 'that.'

"Well, the game was about up. Already I saw one man throw down his spear
in token of surrender--which act of cowardice cost him his life, by the
way--when suddenly a shout arose.

"'Look at the mountain,' they cried; 'there is an impi on the mountain
side.'

"I glanced up, and there sure enough, about half-way down the mountain,
nearing the first fortification, the long-plumed double line of Nala's
warriors was rushing down to battle, the bright light of the morning
glancing on their spears. Afterwards we discovered that the reason of
their delay was that they had been stopped by a river in flood, and
could not reach the mountain crest by dawn. When they did reach it,
however, they saw instantly that the fight was already going on, was
'in flower,' as they put it, and so advanced at once without waiting to
light signal-fires.

"Meanwhile they had been observed from the town, and parties of soldiers
were charging up the steep side of the hill, to occupy the schanses, and
the second line of fortifications behind them. The first line they did
not now attempt to reach or defend; Nala pressed them too close.
But they got to the schanses or pits protected with stone walls, and
constructed to hold from a dozen to twenty men, and soon began to open
fire from them, and from isolated rocks. I turned my eyes to the gates
of the town, which were placed to the north and south. Alr