'Have a cigar,' said an officer of the Perthshire Light Infantry, seeing that Florian was somewhat 'blown' after his scamper from the front to the shelter of the now environed square.
'Thanks,' said he, selecting one from the speaker's silver case; but ere the latter could give Florian a light, a ponderous knobkerie, flung with superhuman force at random—the last force, perhaps, of some dying savage—smashed his head to pulp in his tropical helmet as completely as a half-spent cannon ball would have done, and covered Florian with a sickening mess of blood and brains together.
In imitation of the British formation, a skilful Zulu Induna formed his men in a hollow square and hurled them like a mighty wave, with piercing war-cries and unearthly yells, upon that angle of the great square where six companies were posted under a Crimean veteran of the Scots Fusiliers, with two nine-pounder guns. The fight here became hand to hand, bayonet against assegai, and many a shield, by main strength of arm, was dashed against the breasts and faces of our men; but speedily the Zulu square was broken, rolled up, and the survivors of it fled, stumbling as they ran over their own fallen and the blood-soaked ground on which the latter writhed and weltered.
Under the sweeping fire of the Gatlings they went down as forest leaves do before the last blasts of autumn, and in thirty minutes from the first opening of our infantry fire they were falling back in disorganized masses, which speedily, under the storm of shells, took the form of one vast mob in wild and helpless flight, while the cavalry were ordered in pursuit, and with a loud cheer the 17th unslung their lances, and by fours led the way through an opening made for them in the rear face of the square. The Dragoon Guards, Buller's Horse, and Florian's Mounted Infantry followed in quick succession.
'Front, form troop!' was the first cavalry order.
'Form squadron—form line—gallop—charge!' rang out the trumpets, as, sweeping round on their left pivots, the Horse took the formations indicated, and then, with the united force of some dread and terrible engine, fell swooping down upon the foe, hewing through the shrinking walls of brave human flesh, after the lances were relegated to the sling and swords were drawn.
It was a terrible sight to see how, on right and left, these now red sword-blades were plied, every man rising in his stirrups to give deadlier impetus to his stroke, even when the shrapnel shells, fired with time-fuses, were exploding amid the foe. From the latter there came no cry for mercy nor for quarter; they looked for none, as they would have given none; and all who escaped the slaughter of the pursuit did so by winning the crests of some hills, where horses could not follow them, and from which they opened a lively fire of musketry.
Florian went on in this work like one in a wild, bad dream; and it was only when the halt was sounded, followed by the order, 'Fours about—retire,' that he became quite aware of all he had escaped, had undergone and done, and how mechanically he had hewed about him—when he found the blade of his sword, even his fingers, stained with blood, and the sleeves of his tunic all ripped and burst under the shoulders by the exertions he had used.
Tom Tyrrell came out of the strife with his helmet gone, his head bandaged by a bloody handkerchief, and his horse's flanks bleeding from three assegais that stuck in them; but this was the case with several others.
It is remarkable that after the battle of Ulundi not one wounded Zulu was found on the field. Of all the hundreds upon hundreds who lay there helpless, every man of them had been despatched in cold blood by our native allies.