“They don’t think so, though,” observed Redgy. “Here they come.”
As he spoke the dark columns were seen moving forward, the men advancing with a kind of springing step, holding their shields before them on their left arms. After firing their carbines, they did not stop to reload, but pressed forward, brandishing their assegays in their right hands. A stern silence was observed in the British line until they were within rifle fire. Then the word was given, and the fusillade began. The effect was terrific. The Gatling guns opened whole lanes in the advancing masses, and the leaden storm from the rifles struck down hundreds at every discharge. The ground was almost instantly heaped with bodies, so that the rearward file had to struggle over the piles of slain. They continued, however, to press forward with fierce shouts and undaunted valour to inevitable death, though the fire only grew heavier as they struggled nearer to it.
“What splendid fellows!” said George admiringly; “it really seems a shame to massacre them after this fashion, though no doubt there is no help for it.”
“They are stopping now, though,” said Hardy. “They have advanced nearer than any other troops in the world would, I think, have done, but they are wavering and recoiling now. Ha! there is the signal to charge,” he added, as the bugle sounded. “Now for it, then, George?”
As he spoke, the cavalry darted forth from either flank, and swept down with the force of a hurricane on the disorganised and disheartened masses. In an instant the whole body of Zulus broke and fled in all directions, the horsemen with their sabres plunging among them and mercilessly hewing them down. Even in this extremity the gallant blacks turned again and again on their pursuers, pouring in desultory volleys or hurling assegays, which cost the conquerors many a life. Nor did resistance entirely cease till tracts of broken country were reached, where it was impossible for the cavalry to follow farther. Then they halted, recalled the stragglers, and slowly returned over the scene of the long encounter, the whole route being heaped with the dead and dying with a sad and terrible sameness.
“Well, Vander Heyden,” said Rivers, as they lay on their karosses that evening, too much exhausted with their day’s work to raise their heads from their pillows, “our vows are fulfilled at last. Cetewayo is completely crushed. His army is destroyed, or too widely scattered to be gathered together again. He will never fight another battle nor summon another council. Now at last we may think of our long-delayed journey to Zeerust.”
“I do not know what the terms of your vow were, Rivers,” answered the Dutchman, “but mine remains to be fulfilled Cetewayo is neither slain nor captive yet I grant his power is to all appearance broken. But he is a brave and resolute savage, and his people are still devotedly attached to him. So long as he is alive and at liberty, my vow is not accomplished. You of course can do as you will. But I am not free to depart at present.”
George looked disappointed. “My own resolve,” he said, “no doubt, was to see an end of Cetewayo before I left, and I should not like to set out without you,”—possibly George may have added inwardly, “or without Annchen.” But if this was his thought, he kept it to himself. “I suppose,” he added a moment afterwards, “Hardy also will wait to accompany you.”
“No doubt,” assented the Dutchman; “and besides, Rivers, I ought to tell you that, anxious as I am to set out, I should not like to do so at this season of the year. Even here the weather is extremely trying,—trying even to those who have lived as long in the country as I have. But in the camp here we have sufficiency of food and firing and shelter, as well as medical attendance close at hand, if we should want it. None of these things are to be had with any certainty in the Transvaal. It would be unwise, for you and Mr Margetts at all events, to make the attempt for five or six weeks to come. One of the things that vexed me most last April, when that extraordinary delay occurred, was that I knew that we could not then set out until the beginning of September. But by that time, I have no doubt, Cetewayo will have been killed or be a prisoner in our hands.”
“I suppose you are right,” said George reluctantly. “Well, if I must remain, I shall try to make part of the force that is sent to catch him. I only hope there will not be as long a delay about this part of the affair as there was about the march to Ulundi.”