Sirayo moved out of the fence with the Express, after motioning Miss Anstrade to the laager.
Hume aimed again—longer than before—and the beat of the bare feet over the grass rose louder and louder, like the rush of a river in flood. At last!
“Oh, ay,” shouted Klaas, “he is dead,” and the man on the ant-hill, throwing up his arms, fell forward.
Then Hume, rising, took the Express from Sirayo, and, whipping round, dropped a warrior to each barrel, and, Webster firing rapidly too, caused a check, most of the men dropping to the grass to advance with more safety. But a dozen warriors, tempted by the chance of catching Hume outside the fence, leapt on, swallowing the ground with enormous strides, and twisting whenever the deadly rifle covered one of them. On they came in silence, their shields before them, and the short assegais that won victory for the Zulus held in readiness, and now the gleam of their eyes could be seen, and now a low moan breaks from their lips as they feel their prey.
Webster gradually slipped nearer to the fence with Klaas at his side, and as the Zulus came together in the last rush, the four barrels were emptied and the revolvers drawn.
Now Sirayo’s terrible war-cry was raised as he suddenly bounded forward; in a few strides the lean Gaika was by his side with his sheaf of assegais. There was a shock of shield striking shield, and the foremost Zulu fell with a groan, while, in the same breath almost, the tough shield of the chief met the thrust of the next man, and his red blade plunged deep beneath the arm. “Eh, Zu-tu!” he shouted, springing back from another blow, while his third assailant ate the assegai of the Gaika. Then came the sharp crack-crack of heavy navy revolvers, and the five surviving Zulus turned and ran.
Then they retired into the laager, having taught the enemy a terrible lesson, and then the chief offered snuff with his red hand to the Gaika, who took this pledge of friendship.
“You are a great warrior,” said Hume to Sirayo, “and you, Klaas, have fought like a lion.”
“It is nought,” said the Zulu. “I have killed ten men of the Nkobomokase in a feud when first I got my ring as a married man, and they were warriors every one—not men of the swamps like these, who are feeble. But it is well. They will not attack again to-night, and when the jackal calls we may go safely.”