threats and entreaties, I persuaded the majority of our people to cease
firing useless shots, to reload, and prepare for the rush. Scarcely had
I done so when the enemy came for us with a roar. I am bound to say that
I should never have believed that Matukus had it in them to make such
a determined charge. A large party rushed round the base of the koppie,
and attacked us in flank, while the others swarmed wherever they could
get a foothold, so that we were taken on every side.

"'_Fire!_' I cried, and we did with terrible effect. Many of their men
fell, but though we checked we could not stop them. They closed up and
rushed the first fortification, killing a good number of its defenders.
It was almost all cold steel work now, for we had no time to reload, and
that suited the Butiana habits of fighting well enough, for the stabbing
assegai is a weapon which they understand. Those of our people who
escaped from the first line of walls took refuge in the second, where
I stood myself, encouraging them, and there the fight raged fiercely.
Occasionally parties of the enemy would force a passage, only to perish
on the hither side beneath the Butiana spears. But still they kept
it up, and I saw that, fight as we would, we were doomed. We were
altogether outnumbered, and to make matters worse, fresh bodies
of soldiers were pouring across the plain to the assistance of our
assailants. So I made up my mind to direct a retreat into the caves,
and there expire in a manner as heroic as circumstances would allow; and
while mentally lamenting my hard fate and reflecting on my sins I fought
away like a fiend. It was then, I remember, that I shot my friend the
captain of our escort of the previous day. He had caught sight of
me, and making a vicious dig at my stomach with a spear (which I
successfully dodged), shouted out, or rather began to shout out, one of
his unpleasant allusions to the 'Thing that----' He never got as far as
'bites,' because I shot him after 'that.'