Chapter Nine.
The Living Bridge.
We waited no longer, Mgwali and I. We leaped from our shelter, waving our shields and shouting the King’s war-cry. We had to dash through the glowing ring of ashes which still smouldered redly around our place of refuge, but if it burnt us we knew it not, for we were not in the mind to feel hurts. But, as we dashed forth, black and terrible, to take our share in the slaughter, we found ourselves in the thick of the flying Bakoni.
In the very midst of them we were, hemmed in so close that, we had but to move our hands, and with each thrust a man fell, as a slain bullock when the point of the assegai is placed behind his shoulder, and in this manner we swiftly cleared a ring around us. At first they saw nothing, looking neither to the one side nor the other, as they fled, their heads stretched out before them. But when they did look up, and beheld Zulu shields right in among them, Zulu spears rising and falling, they shrieked aloud in their terror, fleeing even more wildly than ever. Thus we, being but two, were carried along in this flying rout—killing, killing, till we were well nigh weary. Never a weapon was raised against us; no resistance even did they attempt. So great was the fear which was upon them that they allowed themselves to be slain like cattle, and Mgwali and I slew and slew, and laughed aloud.
We had gained the further edge of the town, and now we thought it time to get out of the crowd and rejoin our people. So we worked our way clear without difficulty and turned our faces toward our approaching countrymen.
Then as we were among the huts once more, another great mass of Bakoni suddenly appeared, fleeing for their lives. We sprang forth to meet them, sounding our shrill war-whistles, but these valiant warriors, seeing Zulu shields thus suddenly in front of them, halted, and, turning, strove to flee back the way they had come. But their rear ranks, panic-stricken, crashed against them, forcing them on; yet the fear of the enemy they had seen in front—for they could not have noticed that we were but two—was so great that they would not advance, and the whole of that armed crowd stood shouting and shrieking, crumpled back in the most deadly confusion, not knowing which way to run. At last, turning off from their original course, they streamed wildly out upon the plain, we two pursuing them and laughing as we had never laughed in our lives.
But they had not far to run, for the further “horn” of our army had swung round here, and blindly they rushed upon the lines of Zulu spears, even as they had intended, but a brief while back, we should rush upon theirs. A half-circle of tufted shields, and of blades now reddened and reeking, hemmed them in. The air quivered with the shrill buzzing war-whistle. Whau! Nkose! before a man could have counted fifty, there was not one of those Bakoni left alive. Then a mighty shout of laughter arose from the slayers.
“Ho, Untúswa!” they cried. “We thought these dogs had devoured thee. And, thou, Mgwali! Ha! we have been paying them for your deaths. Greeting, sons of Ntelani! Greeting!”
Thus clamoured my comrades. But I made no reply. Up went my right hand, my weapons dropped upon the corpses of the slain Bakoni, and I cried aloud the Bayéte; for I saw that I was standing in the presence of the King.