He only laughed aloud. "Oh! White Spirit," he said, "is it so? Well,
I've walked a long way from Zululand, and shall be glad of a rest."

And he got it shortly, as will be seen.

Now the Zulus began to sing again--

"We have caught the White Spirit, my brother! my brother!
Iron-Tongue whispered of him, he smelt him out, my brother.
Now the Maboona are ours--they are already dead, my brother."

So that treacherous villain Indaba-zimbi had betrayed me. Suddenly the
chief of the Impi, a grey-haired man named Sususa, held up his assegai,
and instantly there was silence. Then he spoke to some indunas who stood
near him. Instantly they ran to the right and left down the first
line, saying a word to the captain of each company as they passed
him. Presently they were at the respective ends of the line, and
simultaneously held up their spears. As they did so, with an awful
roar of "Bulala Amaboona"--"Slay the Boers," the entire line, numbering
nearly a thousand men, bounded forward like a buck startled from its
form, and rushed down upon the little laager. It was a splendid sight
to see them, their assegais glittering in the sunlight as they rose and
fell above their black shields, their war-plumes bending back upon the
wind, and their fierce faces set intently on the foe, while the solid
earth shook beneath the thunder of their rushing feet. I thought of my
poor friends the Dutchmen, and trembled. What chance had they against so
many?

Now the Zulus, running in the shape of a bow so as to wrap the laager