A wave of dark figures surged into view, shouting, whistling, leaping. On they poured like a pack of wolves. But some distance ahead of them—fleeing for their lives, their eyes starting from their heads in deadly fear—coming straight for the camp, ran five or six men, natives, hard pressed by the surging mass in their rear. Then arose from a multitude of fierce throats, drawn out into a half chant, half roar, but deafening in its thunderous volume, a most hideous and appalling shout—
“Igazi—pu—za!”
Assegais hurled from the onrushing mass whistled through the air. One of the fugitives fell. In a moment a howling, raving crowd was around him, upon him, their tiger-like roars drowning the shrieks of the wretched man being literally hacked to pieces. Another staggered into camp, and fell almost at Gerard’s feet, covered with spear-wounds. And in the fleeing refugees frenzied with terror, they recognised the treacherous and defaulting Swazis.
“Save me, save me, father!” yelled Kazimbi, rolling like a log at Dawes’s feet.
“Keep cool, Ridgeley,” muttered the latter. “Don’t fire a shot, on your life.”
Anything more ferocious and appalling than the aspect of these savages as they poured like a torrent upon the camp it would be hard to conceive. There seemed to be hundreds of them. Naked save for their mútyas, each had a red disc painted on his breast, and another between the eyes. They leaped high in the air as they ran, brandishing their assegais and great shields, and, roaring in long-drawn, bloodthirsty cadence, their terrible slogan. It seemed as though no living thing there, whether man or beast, would survive the blind fury of their overwhelming rush.
And indeed it was a fearful moment for all concerned as they swarmed around the waggons. Gerard, well-nigh carried off his feet by the surging rush, doubted not but that his last moment had come, as the sea of spear-blades, some red and reeking with blood, flashed in front of his eyes, as the deafening vibration of the hideous shout stunned his ears. Still, his presence of mind never deserted him; still through it all he remembered Dawes’s emphatic injunction to keep cool and offer no violence.
It was hard all the same, as he felt himself hustled here and there by the fierce horde. However, he was of strong and athletic build, and with a well-affected, good-humoured bluffness, he was able to push back the foremost aggressors without having recourse to any weapon.
“What have you got to sell, abelúngu?” shouted the wild crowd, with a roar of boisterous laughter. “We come to trade—we come to trade.”
“The way to trade isn’t to raise all this abominable din,” replied Dawes, coolly. “Sit down, can’t you, and talk quietly.”