Closing round the circle, they endeavoured again and again to break through the line or to clamber over the waggon-tilts, and never did savage warriors earn a better title to the name of braves than on that occasion. Even the bristling four and six-inch thorns of the mimosa-bushes would not have been able to turn back their impetuous onset if behind these the stout Dutchmen, fighting for wives and children, had not stood manfully loading and firing volleys of slugs and buckshot at arm’s-length from them. The crowded ranks of the Kafirs were ploughed as if by cannon, while hundreds of assagais were hurled into the enclosure, but happily with little effect, though a few of the defenders—exposing themselves recklessly—were wounded.
While Conrad Marais was standing close to the hind-wheels of one of the waggons, watching for a good shot at a Kafir outside, who was dodging about for the double purpose of baulking Conrad’s intention and thrusting an assagai into him, another active Kafir had clambered unobserved on the tilt of the waggon and was in the very act of leaning over to thrust his spear into the back of the Dutchman’s neck when he was observed by Stephen Orpin, who chanced to be reloading his gun at the moment.
With a loud roar, very unlike his usual gentle tones, Orpin sprang forward, seized a thick piece of wood like a four-foot rolling-pin, and therewith felled the savage, who tumbled headlong into the enclosure.
“Oh, father!” exclaimed a terrified voice at that moment, while a light touch was laid on Conrad’s shoulder.
“What brings you here, Bertha?” said Conrad, with an impatient gesture. “Don’t you know—”
“Come, quick, to mother!” cried the girl, interrupting.
No more was needed. In a moment Conrad was in the central enclosure, where, crowded under a rude erection of planks and boxes, were the women and children. An assagai had penetrated an unguarded crevice, and, passing under the arm of poor Mrs Marais, had pinned her to the family trunk, against which she leaned.
“Bertha could not pull it out,” said Mrs Marais, with a faint smile on her pale face, “but I don’t think I’m much hurt.”
In a moment her husband had pulled out the spear, found that it had penetrated her clothing, and only grazed her breast, took time merely to make sure of this, and then, leaving her in Bertha’s hands, returned to the scene of combat.
He was not an instant too soon. A yell was uttered by the savages as they rushed at a weak point, where the thorn-bush defences had been broken down. The point appeared to be undefended. They were about to leap through in a dense mass when ten Dutchmen, who had reserved their fire, discharged a volley simultaneously into the midst of them. It was a ruse of the defenders to draw the savages to that point. Whilst the Kafirs tumbled back over heaps of dead and dying, several other farmers thrust masses of impenetrable mimosa bush into the gap and refilled it. This discomfiture checked the assailants for a little; they drew off and retired behind the ridge to concert plans for a renewed and more systematic attack.