Kept well in hand by their sub-chiefs, they fought splendidly at first. Directly they came in touch with our lines they charged, and charged straight. Whau! We had not reckoned upon this, and soon our regiments of slaves gave way and began to flee, throwing us back in confusion.
Ha! Then followed a wild din. The hollow was a mass of broad shields and fighting forms, surging wildly hither and thither, and the rocks rang with the clash of wood and hard hide; the thunder of the war-shout, the wild death-yell, and the choking groans of the wounded, smitten unto death. Ha! we “saw red”; our one thought was—blood—blood—ah! and it flowed—yes, it flowed! Hau! that fight was short and sharp. Nearly half our strength lay slain or sorely wounded, and the men of Dingane had lost nearly as many. Yet we had been stamped flat that day but for a rumour that spread among our enemies that a large force was advancing to cut them off on their rear. That saved us. They began to retreat, yet not hurriedly and in rout, but facing us and fighting their way. We, for our part, made no pursuit—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 were to die that day it should die hard.
While we lay thus thinking there came about a strange thing. Over the heavens a lurid cloud had been spreading, and it might have been this which had brought the matter back to men’s recollection. For in the air there thrilled the notes of that sweet, strange song—the Song of the Shield. Did it spring out of the very heavens? None could tell. All gazed eagerly up, for all heard it. Those who were weary and resting sprang to their feet, filled with fresh life. Those who were binding up wounds let that be, and, staring around, uttered ejaculations of awe and surprise. It seemed to spring from beneath the brow of the great iron-faced cliff, and to soar out thence in wreaths of sound. Could the singer be there hidden? No; that was impossible. But we—we listened, and it seemed that life lay outspread anew before our eyes.