change for the better in our position. The soldiers attacking us turned,
realizing that the town was being assailed from the rear, and clambering
down the koppie streamed off to protect their homes against this new
enemy. In five minutes there was not a man left except those who would
move no more, or were too sorely wounded to escape. I felt inclined to
ejaculate '_Saved!_' like the gentleman in the play, but did not because
the occasion was too serious. What I did do was to muster all the men
and reckon up our losses. They amounted to fifty-one killed and wounded,
sixteen men having been killed outright. Then I sent men with the
cooking-pots to the stream of water, and we drank. This done I set my
bearers, being the most useless part of the community, from a fighting
point of view, to the task of attending the injured, and turned to watch
the fray.

"By this time Nala's impi had climbed the first line of fortifications
without opposition, and was advancing in a long line upon the schanses
or pits which were scattered about between it and the second line,
singing a war chant as it came. Presently puffs of smoke began to start
from the schanses, and with my glasses I could see several of our men
falling over. Then as they came opposite a schanse that portion of the
long line of warriors would thicken up and charge it with a wild rush. I
could see them leap on to the walls and vanish into the depths beneath,
some of their number falling backward on each occasion, shot or stabbed
to death.

"Next would come another act in the tragedy. Out from the hither side of
the schanse would pour such of its defenders as were left alive, perhaps
three or four and perhaps a dozen, running for dear life, with the war
dogs on their tracks. One by one they would be caught, then up flashed
the great spear and down fell the pursued--dead. I saw ten of our men