Chapter Twenty Three.

Chapter Twenty Three.The Work of “Suppression.”The chiefs and Gerard were unanimous in the opinion that it would be too much luck to expect to find the Igazipuza unprepared, and the appearance of Ingonyama’s emissaries had set at rest all doubt upon that head; and what with the desperate fearlessness of the outlaw clan—fighting, so to say, with its neck in the halter—and the advantage of fighting on its own ground, the battle that day, as Sobuza had said, was likely to prove a right merry one.All further necessity for concealment being now at an end, theimpiadvanced swiftly and in silence, moving at a brisk ran, and now the gleam of battle was in every eye, as gripping their formidable broad-bladed assegais, the warriors pressed forward, in their own expressive idiom beginning to “see red.” Bounding the spar pointed out by Gerard, they surged up the last slope.Here they formed up into line of battle. Each flank consisted of a company of the Ngobamakosi, and these were to constitute the “horns” when the surrounding had to be done. That on the right had Gcopo for leader, that on the left, another sub-chief, named Matela, while the centre, which was composed of the Udhloko, was led by Sobuza, who, as commander of the expedition, directed the movements generally. Beside him, Gerard had resolved for the present to remain, in order, if called upon, to give assistance by his knowledge of the place.But for the incident of the two emissaries the king’simpimight have supposed it was going to take the doomed Igazipuza completely by surprise, according to the original plan, for as it advanced swiftly up the slope not an enemy showed himself, not a sign of life was there. Had the Igazipuza elected to choose their own fighting-ground, and retired to some spot strategically more favourable for resisting the invaders? Or was there some secret way out of the hollow, known only to a few, and kept for an emergency such as this? It almost began to look like it. Sobuza and his captains, however, were not the men to trust to appearances or to leave anything to chance, and well indeed for them that such was the case.They had reached the critical point. A hundred yards further and they would stand upon the ridge overlooking the hollow. Suddenly the stillness was broken—broken in a startling manner. There was a crash of firearms, and from the slope there arose a mass of warriors springing up as though out of the very earth. Covered by their great war-shields, the broad spear gripped in the right hand, they charged like lightning upon the right flank of the king’s force, and the roar of their ferocious blood-shout went up as the roar of a legion of tigers.Prepared as they were, the surprise, the terrible impetuosity of the charge, momentarily staggered the untried and youthful warriors of the Ngobamakosi. It almost seemed as though they must give way. But Gcopo, their leader, was the right man in the right place.“Strike, children of the king! Death to theabatagati!” he thundered, waving his great shield as he sprang to meet the onrushing horde, “Usútu!’Sú-tu!”“Igazi—pu—za!” roared the latter, answering the king’s war-cry with their own wild slogan. And then as the rival forces met in jarring shock there fell a silence, save for the flutter and crash of shields, the scuffle of feet, the gasp of deep-drawn breaths, the shiver of spears, and the thud of falling bodies. It was all done in a moment.By hurling his whole force upon that of the daring foe, Sobuza could have crushed it in a very few minutes. But that astute leader knew better. He saw at a glance that the attacking Igazipuza, though better men, hardly equalled in numbers the company of the Ngobamakosi with which they were engaged. So he passed a peremptory word to the remainder of his force to hold itself in reserve, and his strategy was justified, for almost immediately another band of the enemy arose with equally startling suddenness, and fell furiously upon his left flank.In obedience to a mysterious signal, the king’simpidivided. Half the Udhloko hurled themselves to the support of the wing first attacked, while the remainder sprang forward in the wake of their chief.“Ho! hunting-dogs of the king, here is your game!Usú-tu!” roared Sobuza, whirling his battle-axe aloft as he leaped to meet these new assailants. The latter were led by a chief of gigantic stature and hideous aspect, beneath whose wildly fantastic adornments of flowing cowhair and long trailing crane’s feathers, Gerard, keeping at the side of Sobuza, had no difficulty in recognising Vunawayo.“Hah!” growled the latter, as the ringed leader came at him. “Now we havemento deal with!”Gerard, recognising his old enemy, had covered him with his revolver, and drew the trigger. But with incredible quickness Vunawayo bounded aside, and the ball found its billet in the body of a warrior behind him. Before he could fire again, Sobuza had met the leader of the Igazipuza in full shock.Then it was as a battle of the giants to behold these two. Their shields clashed together, and remained held at arm’s length, pressing against each other as the heads and interlocked horns of two fighting bulls, each striving to beat down the other’s guard, to draw the other’s stroke by a deft and clever feint; and a false stroke would mean the death of whichever should make it. The warriors on either side had rallied around their respective chiefs and champions, to neither of whom could they render any aid by reason of the desperate fierceness wherewith they were themselves pressing each other. Gerard, carried away by the indescribable savagery and excitement of the combat, began himself to “see red,” was hardly, in fact, conscious of his acts. A sharp sting in the ear, as of a red-hot iron, brought him to himself. Grinding his teeth in fury he emptied his rifle point-blank into the body of a warrior whose assegai stroke had so narrowly missed him, then he was knocked down by the violent contact of a great shield. The bearer of it had raised his spear to strike when he himself was felled by a blow of a battle-axe, and at the same time Gerard was seized by friendly hands and set upon his feet again. Half dazed he continued to load and fire. He saw men stagger beneath their death wound and sink to the earth, now foul and slippery with gore. He saw others almost hacked to pieces as they stood, and then fall to their knees, still thrusting and stabbing as long as there was life in them; but ever the deafening roar of the opposing war-cries, the tossing of weapons and shields, the blows and the gasping, and the spouting blood. It could not last—it could not last.Even the desperate valour of the Igazipuza, together with the fact that they were on higher ground, for they had charged down upon the king’simpi, could not avail for long against the superior numbers of the latter. Vunawayo, finding his efforts against Sobuza unavailing, and noting that more and more of the latter’s warriors were free to come to their chief’s assistance, sprang suddenly back, and waving his shield, gave out in thunder tones the order to retreat.But if the king’s troops imagined that victory was theirs they were destined to be undeceived. All this while the Igazipuza had been pressed farther and farther back until they had nearly reached the top of the ridge, and now as they poured over this in their retreat, through the point where the slopes narrowed to a kind of gateway, the pursuers thundering on their rear were met by a small but fresh force which had been placed there to cover the retreat of the bulk.“By the head-ring of the Great Great One, but these areabatagatiindeed!” growled Sobuza at this fresh evidence of the desperate pertinacity of the enemy. “At them, my children! Hew them down!”And shouting the king’s war-cry he leaped upon the opposing Igazipuza.If the fighting had been fierce before, it was doubly so now. This band of heroes in their way, savage, bloodthirsty freebooters as they were, had been placed there in this latter-day Thermopylae, to die—to die in order that the rest might renew the combat under more favourable conditions, and what more formidable foe can there be than a cornered combatant? They went down at last before the Udhloko spears, but the struggle was a fearful one, the result almost man for man. When the victors, panting, bleeding, maddened with bloodshed and fury, stood on the ridge looking down into the hollow upon the Igazipuza kraal, those who had originally withstood them, and of whom they were in pursuit, had disappeared. This would mean hunting them down—hunting down a cornered and desperate foe who had not hesitated to assume the offensive and attack a force twice as strong as itself, and who still mustered in sufficient numbers to be of formidable menace; hunting down such as these, at bay among the bush and rocks of their own stronghold. A redoubtable undertaking indeed.There lay the great kraal, apparently deserted, for it and its surroundings showed no sign of life. Eagerly Gerard’s glance sought the waggons, and then his heart turned sick. They were still there, but around them also was no sign of life. What had happened? But the next glance was destined to sicken him yet more.“Look—look!” he gasped, gripping Sobuza by the arm. “That is The Tooth. Oh, good God!”The last ejaculation escaped him in his grief. There rose the great pyramid, clear and distinct in the light of early dawn. Something was moving on its apex, and against the cliff-face several dark objects were plainly discernible. To the sharp eyes of the Zulus, and, indeed, to Gerard himself, the nature of them was unmistakable. They were human forms, and they were hanging from the brow of the cliff.Sobuza, to whom Gerard had imparted this novel and hideous form of torture practised by the savage freebooters, gave a grunt of interest and surprise as he beheld with his own eyes the actual process; for to hang a man up by his dislocated arms wrenched round in the sockets was unique and a novelty to him—barbarian as he was.“We are too late—we are too late!” groaned Gerard.“Not so, Jeriji,” said the chief, sending another look at the grisly cliff and the dangling bodies. “There are three of them. But not one of them is a white man.”The rush of hope that rose in Gerard’s heart was dashed.“We cannot see the stake from here,” he said—“the thing they call the ‘point of The Tooth.’ Oh, Heavens, if we are too late! Let us get forward! Quick! We may be in time—we may be in time!”But the Zulu chief, though concerned because of the agony of mind of his young friend, was not there out of any considerations of sentiment. He was there to carry out the orders of the king in all their drastic severity, and was not going to risk failure and court ruin because one unknown white man was in danger of a barbarous death at the hands of the rebel clan. He had got to pursue the fighting force of the latter, and leave it no time to master in any position favourable to itself.“It can’t be done, Jeriji,” he replied. “Afterwards, when we have eaten up all these dogs, then we will turn our attention to The Tooth.”“It will be too late then—too late!” said Gerard, angrily. “Listen, Sobuza!” he almost shouted, as an idea struck him. “Give me a few men, and I will go myself. Don’t you see! That peak commands all the hollow. I know, for I have been on it. And there are people on it now who can signal to the others. Now—is it not in your interest that it should be cleared?”“Hau!” cried the chief, on whom this idea came with a new light. Then he turned, and after a rapid conference with his colleagues, agreed to the plan, and as by this time theimpi—less those who had fallen—had mustered on the ridge, the word was given to advance.And what a different appearance did they now present. Covered with dust and sweat, many of them gashed with wounds and dripping with blood, shields hacked and weapons splintered, still panting with the exertion and excitement of the battle, there was none of that spick-and-span parade-ground appearance which had characterised them during their march upon them now. But instead there was a grim light in their eyes, a fell meaning in the low murmurs that issued now and then from their lips, as the growls of a wounded lion. Here a man might be seen passing his fingers along the blade of a broad assegai, foul and clotted with blood; there another, balancing his heavy short-handled kerrie and explaining how he had just failed to beat down his adversary’s guard; another again, with a gash which had cut through his head-ring and sliced away a portion of the head beneath. Others again, had lost a finger, an ear, and Sobuza himself was wounded in three places, though not seriously. But on every countenance there was a grim and vengeful rigidity, which showed that when the “suppression” of the Igazipuza should come to be proceeded with, the king’s orders would be carried out in no half-hearted manner.Leaving a detachment on the ridge to hold the enemy in check in case he should double back and endeavour to break through, Sobuza ordered the advance. The Igazipuza had fled towards the further end of the hollow, where the rocky jungly nature of the ground would be favourable to them making their last stand, and Gerard, who had thoroughly explored the place, was able to estimate pretty accurately the spot where this was likely to be.“Shall we burn it, my father?” said one of the sub-chiefs, as they passed the great silent kraal. “It would make a merry blaze.”“And a most troublesome smoke,” returned Sobuza. “Burn it not. When we have done with these jackals we will warm ourselves by the flames of their straw. For the present let it be.”“We are near The Tooth now, Sobuza,” said Gerard. “Send the men with me that we may clear it.”But here a fresh difficulty arose. None seemed eager to accompany him. Although the discipline of a Zulu regiment on a war expedition is of iron rigidity, there were mutterings of discontent at the bare idea. The warriors had not come there to take up the quarrel of an unknown white trader, but to exterminate the rebellions subjects of the king. Having tasted its delights, they were burning once more for the mad shock of battle, and with such a foe. They were not keen on falling out of this for the sake of dislodging three or four spies from an elevated position, nor were they eager to place themselves under the command of a white man. The chief himself was but lukewarm in the matter, and it seemed in danger of being abandoned.“If no one will go with me I will go alone!” cried Gerard, in despair. Then, as his glance fell upon a face in the ranks, he was inspired with new hope. “Come now, Nkumbi-ka-zulu,” he went on. “Are you not ready to win the double gun? It is waiting for you. Are there none of your friends who will go with you? We shall be back with theimpilong before the fight is at an end.”The young warrior stepped forth. It was the dream of his life to possess that double gun which he had so vainly tried to jockey out of its owner. Now, by a strange turn of events, he might only hope to possess it by saving the life of that owner.“I am ready,” he said, turning deferentially towards Sobuza for permission.Another and another stepped forward, friends and kinsmen of his.“Nine of you. With yourself there will be ten. You must do the best you can, Jeriji, for I can spare no more,” said Sobuza impatiently. And the pursuit was resumed.Lying back from the hollow in a lateral spur, shut in by ironstone cliffs, was a small kraal, and this place had been chosen by the Igazipuza for their last stand. Hither all their women and cattle had been sent, and here they were resolved to die—to die fighting hard. And no better place could they have chosen than this grimcul de sac. It would be impossible to surround them. Only when they had been driven back step by step—forced against the very face of the iron cliff itself, would the last man be exterminated.Over this weird death-trap there towered a great cloud of dust, and the rocks re-echoed the lowing and trampling of the cattle and the shouts of their drivers, the shrill voices of women, and the squalling of children. And still the messengers of retribution marched on, a fell purpose in each grim countenance; eyeballs rolling with a lurid fury, weapons gripped, step elastic and eager. The dawn had broken lowering and murky, and there was no sun. The wind sang mournfully through the hollow; moaning among the cliffs, as with the wail of spirit voices over the drama of carnage and massacre which was here to be played out. As in the first instance, the Igazipuza had selected a place where their assailants would be obliged to approach them from below.Sobuza having satisfied himself that all the fighting force of the rebel clan was before him, sent back two swift runners to order forward the detachment he had left on the outer ridge, with the exception of a few who were to remain to cut off any stray fugitives who might break through. The contingency that anything like a number might do so seemed hardly worth reckoning on. Then he ordered the immediate attack.As the king’s troops came sweeping up the slope, in perfect line of battle, regular and unbroken, there floated to their ears, rising in dull menace on the fitful puffs of the morning, the weird rhythmical chorus of a war-song.“Cubs of the Lion we,Whose roar sounds Death;Vultures who sit on high,Whose swoop means Death;Serpents who creep below,Whose fangs deal Death—We drink of the blood of men,We laugh at Death!“Wizards of thunder weWhose voice rolls Death;Wizards of lightning weWho flash forth Death!Ho! ‘hunting-dogs of the king,’Come, taste our Death!We drink of the blood of men—We drinkyourDeath!”The great ironstone cliffs echoed back the weird words of the savage strophe with almost the effect of articulate repetition, and when, in its final paean of defiance, the chorus swelled to a clamourous, threatening roar, the disgust and hatred and repulsion which ran through the minds of the king’s soldiers knew no bounds. For to the average Zulu nothing is more repellent than any suggestion of dark dealing, and the gruesome import of the song of the Igazipuza, who had already earned a reputation for wizardry in its foulest form, inspired in the minds of these a fell determination to rid the earth of the whole evil brood.“Usútu!”“Igazi—Pu—Za!”The war-shout of the royal house and the defiant slogan of the rebel clan, mingled in booming echoes from the overhanging cliffs, as the dark crescent line swept unswervingly on; the line of white shields, and the flanking companies of parti-coloured ones, the bristling groups of bright spears. In their wild and fantastic array, the red disk, the hideous stamp of their dreaded order, freshly painted on forehead and chest, the strength of ten men in the hopeless desperation of each, the doomed clansmen stood awaiting the shock. It came.Then again was the silence of voices, but the tramp of striving feet as the conflicting crowd surged backwards and forwards—with the hiss and heave of a dark billow split up on a half-submerged rock—the crash of shields and weapons, the stagger of falling bodies, and the gasp of the slain beneath the savage slashing blows of the infuriated slayers. The Igazipuza are fighting like a race of giants. At this rate barely half the king’s force will return to Ulundi. All three of its leaders are wounded; Sobuza is streaming with blood, but still his gigantic form towers in the thick of the fray, still his battle-axe shears aloft in wavy circles of light, still his white shield shivers that of an opponent like the shock of a charging elephant.Suddenly a sharp shrill warning cry rings forth. Even above the din of the strife there rises a doll, rambling sound which shakes the ground. Nearer, nearer it draws. Thunder? No. Even the combatants pause. A dense cloud of dust is rolling down the kloof, and through it can be seen a forest of bristling horns, a sea of rolling eyes. Even the combatants take up the warning shout, “Xwaya—xwaya! ’Zinkomo!”(“Look out—look out! The cattle!”)Like a whirlwind the frantic herd sweeps down the narrow gorge. Bellowing, leaping, throwing up their horns, the maddened beasts plunge onward, hundreds and hundreds of them, shaking the earth with the thunder of their hoofs, smothering and blinding all with the cyclone of their dust, heading for the outlet. There is no staying the headlong course of the stampeded beasts. The wholeimpiwill be crashed to pulp by the horned terror. In dismay the combatants spring helter-skelter up the rocks, and it goes roaring and thundering by, crushing many as it does so.Whether the move was a spontaneous one, and that the animals, frantic with the shouting and the reek of blood, and all penned up moreover in such small compass, had stampeded of their own accord, or whether it was a last desperate resource on the part of the Igazipuza to crush and destroy the king’simpi, could not at the time be determined. Both parties, for the moment dazed, now rushed at each other with renewed access of fury—but it could not last. The numbers of the Igazipuza had dwindled frightfully; all cohesion among them was at an end. They were now broken up into groups, still fighting desperately.“Yield, wizards!” roared Sobuza. “To fight on is death.”“Ha, ha! We laugh at death, leader of the king’s hunting-dogs!” came the jeering reply.“Taste it, then!” thundered the chief, springing at the largest of these groups, and, whirling a heavy knobkerrie aloft, for his battle-axe was broken, he smashed in the skull of the speaker like an eggshell. With a roar and a rush the king’simpisurged forward, overwhelming the now scattered groups by sheer weight of numbers. The battle was at an end.In ghastly staring heaps, their splintered weapons still gripped in their dying throes, still half covered by their hacked shields, the corpses of the Igazipuza warriors lay, gashed and streaming with blood. Grimly, sullenly, to the death had they fought, and now there were none left to fight. The king’s troops, too, had suffered severely. Gcopo, the leader of the Ngobamakosi, had been killed, and Matéla, the sub-chief, was badly wounded with assegai thrusts, and many a staunch fighting man of that regiment and of the Udhloko had fallen.“On, on!” cried Sobuza, waving his arm. “The king’s work is not yet done. Where is Ingonyama? Where is Vunawayo?”A shout of dismay, of baffled fury, answered him. Rolling their eyes over the groups of slain, the warriors sought the now familiar features of the fighting leader. In vain. Vunawayo was not among them. Had he succeeded in breaking through the lines during the confusion caused by the rush of the cattle? It began to look like it.Again, roaring out the king’s war-cry, the whole force charged eagerly forward. There stood the small kraal. In a moment it was entirely surrounded.“Come forth! come forth!” thundered Sobuza, his voice almost drowned by the dismal clamour of shrieks and terrified howling kept up by the women and children hiding away in their huts in terror of their lives. “Come forth, ere the torch is put in! To linger is death!”Screaming, grovelling in abject fear, the miserable herd crept forth.“Spare us, father! Crush us not, Foot of the Elephant! Bend us not, Paw of the Lion!” they howled, rolling on the ground before the chief, beside themselves with fear as they looked upon the blood-stained weapons and threatening scowls of the king’s warriors. The old hags, especially, kept up their dismal, quavering screech. The younger women were for the most part less scared or stonily resigned. All, however, expected immediate massacre.“Peace, witches—night cats!” thundered Sobuza. “Say, while ye may. Where is Ingonyama?”Whether in the bewilderment of her terror, or out of sheer force of habit, the foremost of the women, a hideous wrinkled hag, to whom the question seemed in particular addressed, replied—“We know not, father; we know not—”“Ha! Ye know not!” said Sobuza, making a sign.Immediately a warrior stepped forward, and without a word, drove his great assegai through the hag’s body.“I give you all one more chance,” roared the chief again, cutting short the howl of terror which went up. “Where is Ingonyama?”“On The Tooth, father. On The Tooth!” eagerly yelled a whole chorus of voices.“If this is a lie, then shall every one of you be even as she,” said the chief, sternly, pointing with his foot at the corpse of the one who had been ill-advised enough to protest ignorance.“It is no lie, father!” they cried lustily. “He is there. It is no lie.”“Ill will it be for yourselves if it is,” said Sobuza, darkly. “And now, witches, this nest of yours shall burn.”Half a dozen warriors sprang eagerly forward, and in as many moments flames were bursting from the straw huts. Disappointed in their hopes of thus smoking out any fighting men who might have crept in there for shelter, the warriors amused themselves by spearing the dogs as they rushed forth, shouting with laughter as a whole cloud of assegais whizzed past some one more fortunate or more fleet than the rest, without transfixing him. But no further violence was offered to the women and children. The king’s sentence had gone forth only against such as should offer resistance, and did not include these.

The chiefs and Gerard were unanimous in the opinion that it would be too much luck to expect to find the Igazipuza unprepared, and the appearance of Ingonyama’s emissaries had set at rest all doubt upon that head; and what with the desperate fearlessness of the outlaw clan—fighting, so to say, with its neck in the halter—and the advantage of fighting on its own ground, the battle that day, as Sobuza had said, was likely to prove a right merry one.

All further necessity for concealment being now at an end, theimpiadvanced swiftly and in silence, moving at a brisk ran, and now the gleam of battle was in every eye, as gripping their formidable broad-bladed assegais, the warriors pressed forward, in their own expressive idiom beginning to “see red.” Bounding the spar pointed out by Gerard, they surged up the last slope.

Here they formed up into line of battle. Each flank consisted of a company of the Ngobamakosi, and these were to constitute the “horns” when the surrounding had to be done. That on the right had Gcopo for leader, that on the left, another sub-chief, named Matela, while the centre, which was composed of the Udhloko, was led by Sobuza, who, as commander of the expedition, directed the movements generally. Beside him, Gerard had resolved for the present to remain, in order, if called upon, to give assistance by his knowledge of the place.

But for the incident of the two emissaries the king’simpimight have supposed it was going to take the doomed Igazipuza completely by surprise, according to the original plan, for as it advanced swiftly up the slope not an enemy showed himself, not a sign of life was there. Had the Igazipuza elected to choose their own fighting-ground, and retired to some spot strategically more favourable for resisting the invaders? Or was there some secret way out of the hollow, known only to a few, and kept for an emergency such as this? It almost began to look like it. Sobuza and his captains, however, were not the men to trust to appearances or to leave anything to chance, and well indeed for them that such was the case.

They had reached the critical point. A hundred yards further and they would stand upon the ridge overlooking the hollow. Suddenly the stillness was broken—broken in a startling manner. There was a crash of firearms, and from the slope there arose a mass of warriors springing up as though out of the very earth. Covered by their great war-shields, the broad spear gripped in the right hand, they charged like lightning upon the right flank of the king’s force, and the roar of their ferocious blood-shout went up as the roar of a legion of tigers.

Prepared as they were, the surprise, the terrible impetuosity of the charge, momentarily staggered the untried and youthful warriors of the Ngobamakosi. It almost seemed as though they must give way. But Gcopo, their leader, was the right man in the right place.

“Strike, children of the king! Death to theabatagati!” he thundered, waving his great shield as he sprang to meet the onrushing horde, “Usútu!’Sú-tu!”

“Igazi—pu—za!” roared the latter, answering the king’s war-cry with their own wild slogan. And then as the rival forces met in jarring shock there fell a silence, save for the flutter and crash of shields, the scuffle of feet, the gasp of deep-drawn breaths, the shiver of spears, and the thud of falling bodies. It was all done in a moment.

By hurling his whole force upon that of the daring foe, Sobuza could have crushed it in a very few minutes. But that astute leader knew better. He saw at a glance that the attacking Igazipuza, though better men, hardly equalled in numbers the company of the Ngobamakosi with which they were engaged. So he passed a peremptory word to the remainder of his force to hold itself in reserve, and his strategy was justified, for almost immediately another band of the enemy arose with equally startling suddenness, and fell furiously upon his left flank.

In obedience to a mysterious signal, the king’simpidivided. Half the Udhloko hurled themselves to the support of the wing first attacked, while the remainder sprang forward in the wake of their chief.

“Ho! hunting-dogs of the king, here is your game!Usú-tu!” roared Sobuza, whirling his battle-axe aloft as he leaped to meet these new assailants. The latter were led by a chief of gigantic stature and hideous aspect, beneath whose wildly fantastic adornments of flowing cowhair and long trailing crane’s feathers, Gerard, keeping at the side of Sobuza, had no difficulty in recognising Vunawayo.

“Hah!” growled the latter, as the ringed leader came at him. “Now we havemento deal with!”

Gerard, recognising his old enemy, had covered him with his revolver, and drew the trigger. But with incredible quickness Vunawayo bounded aside, and the ball found its billet in the body of a warrior behind him. Before he could fire again, Sobuza had met the leader of the Igazipuza in full shock.

Then it was as a battle of the giants to behold these two. Their shields clashed together, and remained held at arm’s length, pressing against each other as the heads and interlocked horns of two fighting bulls, each striving to beat down the other’s guard, to draw the other’s stroke by a deft and clever feint; and a false stroke would mean the death of whichever should make it. The warriors on either side had rallied around their respective chiefs and champions, to neither of whom could they render any aid by reason of the desperate fierceness wherewith they were themselves pressing each other. Gerard, carried away by the indescribable savagery and excitement of the combat, began himself to “see red,” was hardly, in fact, conscious of his acts. A sharp sting in the ear, as of a red-hot iron, brought him to himself. Grinding his teeth in fury he emptied his rifle point-blank into the body of a warrior whose assegai stroke had so narrowly missed him, then he was knocked down by the violent contact of a great shield. The bearer of it had raised his spear to strike when he himself was felled by a blow of a battle-axe, and at the same time Gerard was seized by friendly hands and set upon his feet again. Half dazed he continued to load and fire. He saw men stagger beneath their death wound and sink to the earth, now foul and slippery with gore. He saw others almost hacked to pieces as they stood, and then fall to their knees, still thrusting and stabbing as long as there was life in them; but ever the deafening roar of the opposing war-cries, the tossing of weapons and shields, the blows and the gasping, and the spouting blood. It could not last—it could not last.

Even the desperate valour of the Igazipuza, together with the fact that they were on higher ground, for they had charged down upon the king’simpi, could not avail for long against the superior numbers of the latter. Vunawayo, finding his efforts against Sobuza unavailing, and noting that more and more of the latter’s warriors were free to come to their chief’s assistance, sprang suddenly back, and waving his shield, gave out in thunder tones the order to retreat.

But if the king’s troops imagined that victory was theirs they were destined to be undeceived. All this while the Igazipuza had been pressed farther and farther back until they had nearly reached the top of the ridge, and now as they poured over this in their retreat, through the point where the slopes narrowed to a kind of gateway, the pursuers thundering on their rear were met by a small but fresh force which had been placed there to cover the retreat of the bulk.

“By the head-ring of the Great Great One, but these areabatagatiindeed!” growled Sobuza at this fresh evidence of the desperate pertinacity of the enemy. “At them, my children! Hew them down!”

And shouting the king’s war-cry he leaped upon the opposing Igazipuza.

If the fighting had been fierce before, it was doubly so now. This band of heroes in their way, savage, bloodthirsty freebooters as they were, had been placed there in this latter-day Thermopylae, to die—to die in order that the rest might renew the combat under more favourable conditions, and what more formidable foe can there be than a cornered combatant? They went down at last before the Udhloko spears, but the struggle was a fearful one, the result almost man for man. When the victors, panting, bleeding, maddened with bloodshed and fury, stood on the ridge looking down into the hollow upon the Igazipuza kraal, those who had originally withstood them, and of whom they were in pursuit, had disappeared. This would mean hunting them down—hunting down a cornered and desperate foe who had not hesitated to assume the offensive and attack a force twice as strong as itself, and who still mustered in sufficient numbers to be of formidable menace; hunting down such as these, at bay among the bush and rocks of their own stronghold. A redoubtable undertaking indeed.

There lay the great kraal, apparently deserted, for it and its surroundings showed no sign of life. Eagerly Gerard’s glance sought the waggons, and then his heart turned sick. They were still there, but around them also was no sign of life. What had happened? But the next glance was destined to sicken him yet more.

“Look—look!” he gasped, gripping Sobuza by the arm. “That is The Tooth. Oh, good God!”

The last ejaculation escaped him in his grief. There rose the great pyramid, clear and distinct in the light of early dawn. Something was moving on its apex, and against the cliff-face several dark objects were plainly discernible. To the sharp eyes of the Zulus, and, indeed, to Gerard himself, the nature of them was unmistakable. They were human forms, and they were hanging from the brow of the cliff.

Sobuza, to whom Gerard had imparted this novel and hideous form of torture practised by the savage freebooters, gave a grunt of interest and surprise as he beheld with his own eyes the actual process; for to hang a man up by his dislocated arms wrenched round in the sockets was unique and a novelty to him—barbarian as he was.

“We are too late—we are too late!” groaned Gerard.

“Not so, Jeriji,” said the chief, sending another look at the grisly cliff and the dangling bodies. “There are three of them. But not one of them is a white man.”

The rush of hope that rose in Gerard’s heart was dashed.

“We cannot see the stake from here,” he said—“the thing they call the ‘point of The Tooth.’ Oh, Heavens, if we are too late! Let us get forward! Quick! We may be in time—we may be in time!”

But the Zulu chief, though concerned because of the agony of mind of his young friend, was not there out of any considerations of sentiment. He was there to carry out the orders of the king in all their drastic severity, and was not going to risk failure and court ruin because one unknown white man was in danger of a barbarous death at the hands of the rebel clan. He had got to pursue the fighting force of the latter, and leave it no time to master in any position favourable to itself.

“It can’t be done, Jeriji,” he replied. “Afterwards, when we have eaten up all these dogs, then we will turn our attention to The Tooth.”

“It will be too late then—too late!” said Gerard, angrily. “Listen, Sobuza!” he almost shouted, as an idea struck him. “Give me a few men, and I will go myself. Don’t you see! That peak commands all the hollow. I know, for I have been on it. And there are people on it now who can signal to the others. Now—is it not in your interest that it should be cleared?”

“Hau!” cried the chief, on whom this idea came with a new light. Then he turned, and after a rapid conference with his colleagues, agreed to the plan, and as by this time theimpi—less those who had fallen—had mustered on the ridge, the word was given to advance.

And what a different appearance did they now present. Covered with dust and sweat, many of them gashed with wounds and dripping with blood, shields hacked and weapons splintered, still panting with the exertion and excitement of the battle, there was none of that spick-and-span parade-ground appearance which had characterised them during their march upon them now. But instead there was a grim light in their eyes, a fell meaning in the low murmurs that issued now and then from their lips, as the growls of a wounded lion. Here a man might be seen passing his fingers along the blade of a broad assegai, foul and clotted with blood; there another, balancing his heavy short-handled kerrie and explaining how he had just failed to beat down his adversary’s guard; another again, with a gash which had cut through his head-ring and sliced away a portion of the head beneath. Others again, had lost a finger, an ear, and Sobuza himself was wounded in three places, though not seriously. But on every countenance there was a grim and vengeful rigidity, which showed that when the “suppression” of the Igazipuza should come to be proceeded with, the king’s orders would be carried out in no half-hearted manner.

Leaving a detachment on the ridge to hold the enemy in check in case he should double back and endeavour to break through, Sobuza ordered the advance. The Igazipuza had fled towards the further end of the hollow, where the rocky jungly nature of the ground would be favourable to them making their last stand, and Gerard, who had thoroughly explored the place, was able to estimate pretty accurately the spot where this was likely to be.

“Shall we burn it, my father?” said one of the sub-chiefs, as they passed the great silent kraal. “It would make a merry blaze.”

“And a most troublesome smoke,” returned Sobuza. “Burn it not. When we have done with these jackals we will warm ourselves by the flames of their straw. For the present let it be.”

“We are near The Tooth now, Sobuza,” said Gerard. “Send the men with me that we may clear it.”

But here a fresh difficulty arose. None seemed eager to accompany him. Although the discipline of a Zulu regiment on a war expedition is of iron rigidity, there were mutterings of discontent at the bare idea. The warriors had not come there to take up the quarrel of an unknown white trader, but to exterminate the rebellions subjects of the king. Having tasted its delights, they were burning once more for the mad shock of battle, and with such a foe. They were not keen on falling out of this for the sake of dislodging three or four spies from an elevated position, nor were they eager to place themselves under the command of a white man. The chief himself was but lukewarm in the matter, and it seemed in danger of being abandoned.

“If no one will go with me I will go alone!” cried Gerard, in despair. Then, as his glance fell upon a face in the ranks, he was inspired with new hope. “Come now, Nkumbi-ka-zulu,” he went on. “Are you not ready to win the double gun? It is waiting for you. Are there none of your friends who will go with you? We shall be back with theimpilong before the fight is at an end.”

The young warrior stepped forth. It was the dream of his life to possess that double gun which he had so vainly tried to jockey out of its owner. Now, by a strange turn of events, he might only hope to possess it by saving the life of that owner.

“I am ready,” he said, turning deferentially towards Sobuza for permission.

Another and another stepped forward, friends and kinsmen of his.

“Nine of you. With yourself there will be ten. You must do the best you can, Jeriji, for I can spare no more,” said Sobuza impatiently. And the pursuit was resumed.

Lying back from the hollow in a lateral spur, shut in by ironstone cliffs, was a small kraal, and this place had been chosen by the Igazipuza for their last stand. Hither all their women and cattle had been sent, and here they were resolved to die—to die fighting hard. And no better place could they have chosen than this grimcul de sac. It would be impossible to surround them. Only when they had been driven back step by step—forced against the very face of the iron cliff itself, would the last man be exterminated.

Over this weird death-trap there towered a great cloud of dust, and the rocks re-echoed the lowing and trampling of the cattle and the shouts of their drivers, the shrill voices of women, and the squalling of children. And still the messengers of retribution marched on, a fell purpose in each grim countenance; eyeballs rolling with a lurid fury, weapons gripped, step elastic and eager. The dawn had broken lowering and murky, and there was no sun. The wind sang mournfully through the hollow; moaning among the cliffs, as with the wail of spirit voices over the drama of carnage and massacre which was here to be played out. As in the first instance, the Igazipuza had selected a place where their assailants would be obliged to approach them from below.

Sobuza having satisfied himself that all the fighting force of the rebel clan was before him, sent back two swift runners to order forward the detachment he had left on the outer ridge, with the exception of a few who were to remain to cut off any stray fugitives who might break through. The contingency that anything like a number might do so seemed hardly worth reckoning on. Then he ordered the immediate attack.

As the king’s troops came sweeping up the slope, in perfect line of battle, regular and unbroken, there floated to their ears, rising in dull menace on the fitful puffs of the morning, the weird rhythmical chorus of a war-song.

“Cubs of the Lion we,Whose roar sounds Death;Vultures who sit on high,Whose swoop means Death;Serpents who creep below,Whose fangs deal Death—We drink of the blood of men,We laugh at Death!“Wizards of thunder weWhose voice rolls Death;Wizards of lightning weWho flash forth Death!Ho! ‘hunting-dogs of the king,’Come, taste our Death!We drink of the blood of men—We drinkyourDeath!”

“Cubs of the Lion we,Whose roar sounds Death;Vultures who sit on high,Whose swoop means Death;Serpents who creep below,Whose fangs deal Death—We drink of the blood of men,We laugh at Death!“Wizards of thunder weWhose voice rolls Death;Wizards of lightning weWho flash forth Death!Ho! ‘hunting-dogs of the king,’Come, taste our Death!We drink of the blood of men—We drinkyourDeath!”

The great ironstone cliffs echoed back the weird words of the savage strophe with almost the effect of articulate repetition, and when, in its final paean of defiance, the chorus swelled to a clamourous, threatening roar, the disgust and hatred and repulsion which ran through the minds of the king’s soldiers knew no bounds. For to the average Zulu nothing is more repellent than any suggestion of dark dealing, and the gruesome import of the song of the Igazipuza, who had already earned a reputation for wizardry in its foulest form, inspired in the minds of these a fell determination to rid the earth of the whole evil brood.

“Usútu!”

“Igazi—Pu—Za!”

The war-shout of the royal house and the defiant slogan of the rebel clan, mingled in booming echoes from the overhanging cliffs, as the dark crescent line swept unswervingly on; the line of white shields, and the flanking companies of parti-coloured ones, the bristling groups of bright spears. In their wild and fantastic array, the red disk, the hideous stamp of their dreaded order, freshly painted on forehead and chest, the strength of ten men in the hopeless desperation of each, the doomed clansmen stood awaiting the shock. It came.

Then again was the silence of voices, but the tramp of striving feet as the conflicting crowd surged backwards and forwards—with the hiss and heave of a dark billow split up on a half-submerged rock—the crash of shields and weapons, the stagger of falling bodies, and the gasp of the slain beneath the savage slashing blows of the infuriated slayers. The Igazipuza are fighting like a race of giants. At this rate barely half the king’s force will return to Ulundi. All three of its leaders are wounded; Sobuza is streaming with blood, but still his gigantic form towers in the thick of the fray, still his battle-axe shears aloft in wavy circles of light, still his white shield shivers that of an opponent like the shock of a charging elephant.

Suddenly a sharp shrill warning cry rings forth. Even above the din of the strife there rises a doll, rambling sound which shakes the ground. Nearer, nearer it draws. Thunder? No. Even the combatants pause. A dense cloud of dust is rolling down the kloof, and through it can be seen a forest of bristling horns, a sea of rolling eyes. Even the combatants take up the warning shout, “Xwaya—xwaya! ’Zinkomo!”

(“Look out—look out! The cattle!”)

Like a whirlwind the frantic herd sweeps down the narrow gorge. Bellowing, leaping, throwing up their horns, the maddened beasts plunge onward, hundreds and hundreds of them, shaking the earth with the thunder of their hoofs, smothering and blinding all with the cyclone of their dust, heading for the outlet. There is no staying the headlong course of the stampeded beasts. The wholeimpiwill be crashed to pulp by the horned terror. In dismay the combatants spring helter-skelter up the rocks, and it goes roaring and thundering by, crushing many as it does so.

Whether the move was a spontaneous one, and that the animals, frantic with the shouting and the reek of blood, and all penned up moreover in such small compass, had stampeded of their own accord, or whether it was a last desperate resource on the part of the Igazipuza to crush and destroy the king’simpi, could not at the time be determined. Both parties, for the moment dazed, now rushed at each other with renewed access of fury—but it could not last. The numbers of the Igazipuza had dwindled frightfully; all cohesion among them was at an end. They were now broken up into groups, still fighting desperately.

“Yield, wizards!” roared Sobuza. “To fight on is death.”

“Ha, ha! We laugh at death, leader of the king’s hunting-dogs!” came the jeering reply.

“Taste it, then!” thundered the chief, springing at the largest of these groups, and, whirling a heavy knobkerrie aloft, for his battle-axe was broken, he smashed in the skull of the speaker like an eggshell. With a roar and a rush the king’simpisurged forward, overwhelming the now scattered groups by sheer weight of numbers. The battle was at an end.

In ghastly staring heaps, their splintered weapons still gripped in their dying throes, still half covered by their hacked shields, the corpses of the Igazipuza warriors lay, gashed and streaming with blood. Grimly, sullenly, to the death had they fought, and now there were none left to fight. The king’s troops, too, had suffered severely. Gcopo, the leader of the Ngobamakosi, had been killed, and Matéla, the sub-chief, was badly wounded with assegai thrusts, and many a staunch fighting man of that regiment and of the Udhloko had fallen.

“On, on!” cried Sobuza, waving his arm. “The king’s work is not yet done. Where is Ingonyama? Where is Vunawayo?”

A shout of dismay, of baffled fury, answered him. Rolling their eyes over the groups of slain, the warriors sought the now familiar features of the fighting leader. In vain. Vunawayo was not among them. Had he succeeded in breaking through the lines during the confusion caused by the rush of the cattle? It began to look like it.

Again, roaring out the king’s war-cry, the whole force charged eagerly forward. There stood the small kraal. In a moment it was entirely surrounded.

“Come forth! come forth!” thundered Sobuza, his voice almost drowned by the dismal clamour of shrieks and terrified howling kept up by the women and children hiding away in their huts in terror of their lives. “Come forth, ere the torch is put in! To linger is death!”

Screaming, grovelling in abject fear, the miserable herd crept forth.

“Spare us, father! Crush us not, Foot of the Elephant! Bend us not, Paw of the Lion!” they howled, rolling on the ground before the chief, beside themselves with fear as they looked upon the blood-stained weapons and threatening scowls of the king’s warriors. The old hags, especially, kept up their dismal, quavering screech. The younger women were for the most part less scared or stonily resigned. All, however, expected immediate massacre.

“Peace, witches—night cats!” thundered Sobuza. “Say, while ye may. Where is Ingonyama?”

Whether in the bewilderment of her terror, or out of sheer force of habit, the foremost of the women, a hideous wrinkled hag, to whom the question seemed in particular addressed, replied—

“We know not, father; we know not—”

“Ha! Ye know not!” said Sobuza, making a sign.

Immediately a warrior stepped forward, and without a word, drove his great assegai through the hag’s body.

“I give you all one more chance,” roared the chief again, cutting short the howl of terror which went up. “Where is Ingonyama?”

“On The Tooth, father. On The Tooth!” eagerly yelled a whole chorus of voices.

“If this is a lie, then shall every one of you be even as she,” said the chief, sternly, pointing with his foot at the corpse of the one who had been ill-advised enough to protest ignorance.

“It is no lie, father!” they cried lustily. “He is there. It is no lie.”

“Ill will it be for yourselves if it is,” said Sobuza, darkly. “And now, witches, this nest of yours shall burn.”

Half a dozen warriors sprang eagerly forward, and in as many moments flames were bursting from the straw huts. Disappointed in their hopes of thus smoking out any fighting men who might have crept in there for shelter, the warriors amused themselves by spearing the dogs as they rushed forth, shouting with laughter as a whole cloud of assegais whizzed past some one more fortunate or more fleet than the rest, without transfixing him. But no further violence was offered to the women and children. The king’s sentence had gone forth only against such as should offer resistance, and did not include these.

Chapter Twenty Four.The Last of the Freebooters.Meanwhile Gerard, with a perfect agony of dread and apprehension at his heart, was speeding with his young Zulu allies in the direction of “The Tooth.” Though they could hardly hope to gain it unobserved, yet by way of neglecting no precaution, they crept along as much as possible under cover of the bush. Fortunately, the approaches were well-known to Gerard, who was thus able to guide his party straight to the point by which alone it was accessible.“See, there!” exclaimed Nkumbi-ka-zulu, suddenly, touching his arm. “Au! the wizards!”They had got the face of the great rock pyramid almost in section. Looking up, Gerard beheld with a shudder the hanging bodies, which he had first seen from a distance. They were very near now, quite near enough to make out the features of the tortured victims, who, however, appeared to be dead, for they hung motionless against the cliff. Shuddering again, Gerard recognised in the drawn, ghastly countenances those of the three Swazis.There were still only the three, yet from this he augured no good thing. That horrible stake on the apex of the mount—he could not see that. Did it, too, hold its tortured writhing victim? What had they done with John Dawes, with Sintoba, Fulani, and the other natives? And then he began to hope that for some purpose they might yet have been spared. If so, it might not be too late.“Now, Nkumbi,” he whispered eagerly. “Up we go! This is the side. I will be first at the top; do you keep close behind me. There cannot be many up there. The place will not hold more than a few, and besides, all their fighting force will be busy with Sobuza.”As they drew near the summit of the gruesome rock of death, a strange, unwonted stillness reigned. Could it be that the place was deserted? Had the savages already accomplished their horrible work and gone away? Gerard’s heart beat like a hammer as he climbed the last bit of steep rocky path, and he could hardly see. His brain seemed to swim.Suddenly a strange, rumbling, scuffling sound met his ears, the sound as of a struggle. Mingling with it were quick, deep-toned ejaculations. A wave of a great relief surged round his heart, for he recognised one of the voices. He was not, then, too late.In a moment he gained the summit, and this was what he saw.In the centre of the depressed hollow, arrayed in all the grotesque and hideous paraphernalia of a witch-doctor, the great lion’s skin draping him from head to foot, stood Ingonyana, surrounded by half a dozen warriors. Beside him rose the grim, pointed stake, empty now, and ready to receive another victim. And the victim was there. Struggling in the grasp of four athletic savages, struggling with all the might of a powerful and sinewy frame, bound as he was, straining every nerve and muscle, was a white man. They had passed areimround his neck, and were trying to draw his head down almost to his knees, in a word, to truss him like a fowl, preparatory to impaling him upon that hideous stake. And in this man, Gerard recognised at a glance John Dawes.So intent were all upon the execution of their barbarous task, that the approach of the party took place absolutely unheeded. To fling himself upon the warriors who were straggling with his friend was to Gerard the work of a fraction of an instant. To empty his revolver into the head of one, and the body of another was that of the same iota of time. Then as the remaining two with a yell of surprise started back to seize the weapons, which they had dropped while engaged in their straggle with the prisoner, they were speared by the Zulus who had followed close behind Gerard.“Usútu! Death to theabatagati!” thundered Nkumbi-ka-zulu, hurling a casting assegai full at the chief.Ingonyama, however, caught it deftly on his shield, and charged forward upon the thrower, followed by his six remaining warriors. Bending the air with their ferocious blood-shout, the Igazipuza, having recovered from their momentary surprise, strove now to bear back the assailants, to press them over the cliff’s brow. But the blood of the young Ngobamakosi warriors was up. Not an inch did they give way, and numerically the odds were in their favour. Hand to hand—slashing, parrying, thrusting—they fought.So swift was the attack—so hard pressed by the ferocious and desperate freebooters was Gerard and his allies, that the former had not even so much as a moment of time wherein to release Dawes. He could only stand before him to protect him with his life. Then suddenly seizing his opportunity, he slipped his rifle between the shoulders of two of the striving Ngobamakosi, and hardly taking aim pressed the trigger. Ingonyama leaped in the air, and fell heavily forward, the blood pouring from a small round hole in his forehead.“Au! Between the eyes has his life been let out!” cried Nkumbi-ka-zulu, unconsciously echoing the words of the dead chief himself, uttered so prophetically over the lion’s skin which he still wore.And, remembering the words, despair was in the hearts of the bystanders; but despair to the intrepid, almost fanatical Igazipuza meant only a fresh access of desperation. So far from the fall of their chief inspiring them with dismay, it only nerved them to resistance more stubborn, more ferocious than ever.Three out of the six were already slain, one almost disabled from wounds. Three likewise of the Ngobamakosi were down—so far man for man. The remaining three, pressed back inch by inch, were already at the cliff’s brow. As for asking quarter that was the last thing in the world they would ever have dreamed of. Gerard now found the opportunity to cut thereimswhich bound his friend, and thrust his revolver into the hand of the latter.Hardly had he done so when a terrific uproar arose beneath—the royal shout ofUsútu. On it came, surging upward, and immediately there sprang upon the apex of The Tooth some five or six warriors. The red circle showed them to be enemies, the panting chests and hacked shields and the quick eager way in which they turned to glance back as soon as they had gained the summit, showed them to be fugitives. A gasp of surprise escaped the two white men as they caught sight of the foremost. It was Vunawayo.“Ha!Umlúngu!” cried the latter, as he sighted Gerard, “I told you we should meet again on the point of The Tooth! And we have.”There was something so terrific, so appalling in the very aspect of the gigantic savage, as covered with blood, his evil features working in a most fiendish and malignant grin, he darted like lightning upon Gerard, that even the latter might have been excused if he had felt momentarily unnerved. Unluckily, too, his foot slipped, so that his rifle bullet, instead of meeting his assailant full in the chest, only hummed past the latter’s ear. He was at the mercy of his formidable foe. Parrying with his shield the blow aimed at him by Gerard’s dabbed rifle, Vunawayo made a furious stab. But Gerard, avoiding it, gripped his assailant by the legs and threw him. The agile and powerful Zulu, however, was half up in a moment, and the straggle became a hand-to-hand one. No assistance either could Dawes or the Ngobamakosi give, all their efforts being fully taxed to hold their own against this new accession of strength to the side of their enemies.“Au,’mlúngu! I told you our meeting would be a long one,” growled Vunawayo, between his set teeth, as they rolled nearer and nearer to the brow of the cliff. Gerard the while felt every muscle in his powerful young frame cracking, strained as it was to prevent the savage from freeing the hand which held the assegai. Moments seemed years—nearer and nearer to the fatal brink the combatants rolled. Then the fierce and desperate savage, suddenly jerking free his left wrist, seized his adversary by the throat.Then Gerard felt that his end had come. His eyes seemed squeezed out of his head. The whole world was spinning round with him. A tug—a final effort—his opponent had got him to the edge of the height. He was going—both were going—The air rang with the deep-throated “Usútu!” as Sobuza and his followers came swarming over the edge of the summit. Gerard was conscious of a spout of warm blood over his face, for the moment blinding him; of the relaxing grip of his adversary; of a plunge and scuffle as the body of the latter crashed over the brink—of the grasp of powerful hands dragging him back to life and safety. Then, half choked, his brain swimming, he rose to his feet, and took in what had happened—what was happening—the last act in the suppression of the redoubtable freebooting clan.It all took place in a moment. The summit was alive with warriors, with tossing shields and bristling weapons, all pressing forward upon one man.He was standing fronting them like a stag at bay—standing on a projecting pinnacle of rock, balancing himself right over the abyss. He was a man of large, fine stature, and his eyes flashed with the elation of a heroic courage, as covered by his great shield, and a broad assegai flourished aloft in his right hand, he defied his slayers to approach.“Ho, hunting-dogs of the king, here is your quarry! Come and seize it,” he shouted, in deep, mocking tones. “What, afraid? The king’simpiafraid of one man! What a sight for the spirit of Tyaka! Ha! I am the last of the Igazipuza, and the whole of the king’simpifears me—fears me!” he repeated, in a kind of long-drawn chant—a very death-song, in fact.Now the summit sloped down to the pinnacle of rock whereon the man stood. To attack him hand-to-hand was certain death, for his object was plain—to seize and drag into the abyss with him whoever should approach, and thus to die true to the traditions of his order, an enemy’s life in his hand. Assegais thrown at him from above he only laughed at, parrying them easily with his shield. Sobuza and his warriors were beside themselves with helpless rage. The jeering laughter and contemptuous defiance of the man goaded them to madness. But how to get at him? The chief was too proud to admit himself beaten by asking the aid of the firearms of his white allies, whereas they, in sheer admiration of the man’s desperate intrepidity, forebore to use them. Even John Dawes, notwithstanding his recent rough treatment and narrow escape from the most barbarous of deaths, could hardly bring himself to fire upon this sole survivor of the race which had so abominably ill-used him.But the difficulty solved itself unexpectedly. The savage, seeing Gerard pushing his way to the front—seeing, too, the rifle in his hand, mistook his intentions. If they were not going to purchase the pleasure of taking his life at the price of losing one of their own, they should not have it for nothing.“Ho, cowards!” he roared with flashing eyes. “Ho, cowardly dogs who fear one man. Go, tell your king I spit at his head-ring! Igazi—pu—za!” And as the last long-drawn note of the ferocious war-shout of his tribe escaped his lips, he turned and sprang out into empty air, and a dull, heavy thud and the clink of metal upon stones rising upward to the ears of those above, told that the last of the Igazipuza warriors had died even as those who had gone before him had died—fierce, stubborn, formidable to the end, but unyielding.A gasp of relief, admiration, awe, went up from the spectators of this powerfully tragic scene. Then they turned to leave the mount of death.“Whau! these areabatagatiindeed!” quoth Sobuza. “But they are right valiant fighters.”“And this, my father, what shall we do with it?” said one of the warriors, designating the body of Ingonyama, which lay just as it had fallen, covered with the great lion’s skin. “Shall we not place it on ‘the point of the Tooth,’ that even the very birds may behold the fate of the enemies of the Great Great One?”“The king’s orders did not say that,” replied Sobuza, who was not free from motives of class-feeling. “Ingonyama was a chief, and a brave man, and now he is dead. Let him lie in peace, for was he not a chief?”“What of this?” said Dawes, touching the lion’s skin.“We want it not,” answered Sobuza. “It, too, looks liketagati. See! The life was let out of it and its wearer by the same hole.”“That’s a fact,” said Dawes. “But, if you’re so particular, we are not. We are going to have this—eh, Ridgeley?” And he plucked the lion’s skin from the body of the dead chief.The Zulus stared, then shrugged their shoulders. A white man might do all kinds of things which were not lawful for themselves, wherefore they did not think so very much of the act.As they descended from the dreadful hill of slaughter, Dawes narrated all that had befallen him since Gerard had left—his jeopardy in the kraal, and how he had held Ingonyama at the point of his revolver, and that within a few yards of his dancing warriors; then his bold attempt at trekking away, the shooting of the councillor, Sonkwana, the fight, and his own recapture. Nothing on earth had saved him from the frightful fate to which he had been adjudged, but the fact of the lateness of the hour—that and the arrival of the king’simpiat dawn. It was too dark to put him to death that evening, and so he had spent the night a close prisoner, with so many hours of silence and darkness before him wherein to look forward to the terrible torture which awaited him the next day.Before dawn, however, had come tidings that the king’simpiwas marching upon the place, and he was dragged forth into the midst of the whole horde of exasperated barbarians, clamouring like wolves for his blood. But it had been decided to send emissaries to the king’sinduna, and meanwhile he was taken to the summit of The Tooth.“It’s a mercy you turned up when you did, Ridgeley,” he concluded. “Five minutes later, and I’d have been kicking on that stake. Faugh!”Then Gerard, in turn, related his own experiences. Dawes listened attentively—gravely.“It was a lucky day for both of us when you dragged that same Sobuza out of the water, over the Umgeni Falls, and a lucky day for me when Cetywayo took it into his head that it was time to suppress the Igazipuza,” he said seriously. “And it was a lucky day, too, for me the day I ran against you knocking around Maritzburg, down on your luck; for I don’t stick at telling you, Ridgeley, that there’s not a chap in forty would have carried through that blockade-running business with the pluck and dash and, above all, cool soundness of judgment you showed. And but for that, where should I have been?”Gerard reddened.“Have you quite done making a speech, Dawes?” he said, laughing confusedly. “Because, if so, let’s talk about other things. What has become of Sintoba, and the rest of them?”Dawes’s countenance fell.“Hang me if I know,” he said. “From the time they strapped me up I saw no more of the people. The Swazis were hung over here, poor devils, as you saw; but I didn’t see that. It was done just before they lugged me up. I’m afraid though these brutes have made mincemeat of them.”“What are we going to do, now?” said Gerard. “I suppose we can trek home again.”“Do? Why, just this. We’ll go to the king’s kraal and claim compensation for the loss of our time and liberty and all the funk we’ve been put in. And we’ll get it, too.”“Hadn’t we better let well alone?” suggested Gerard. “We have got our stock back. Would it not be best to inspan quietly, and trek right away out of the country?”“Perhaps it would be best in this instance,” allowed Dawes, after a moment’s pause; “though I had not intended to do things by halves. By the way, I did show an error of judgment the last time I decided to trek. I ought to have waited quietly until the upshot of your undertaking came off. Yes, I made a mistake that time. It was a direct challenge to them, so to speak. But I say, Ridgeley, what a yarn we’ll have to spin to old Bob Kingsland, when next we see him. Why, he’ll vote us a brace of the biggest liars in Natal.”Gerard laughed. Then, at the thoughts suggested by the mention of Mr Kingsland, he subsided into silence. Not long, however, was he suffered to enjoy his own thoughts, for as they reached the foot of the pyramid a considerable hubbub greeted them.The remainder of the king’simpihad come up. In the midst of this, hustled, pushed, occasionally kicked, and threatened at every step by a multitude of spears, were three unfortunate natives.“Kill them!” “Cut them to pieces!” “They are Igazipuza!” “We saw them in the fight!” “They have washed off their red wizard’s mark!” were some of the tumultuous shouts which went up from the crowd.“Amakafula? Hau! Only listen to that! No. They are Igazipuza, cowardly dogs, not like the rest, who were brave!” roared the savages, who, having tasted what should have been enough blood, clamoured for more. The lives of the wretched men seemed not worth a moment’s purchase. An exclamation escaped both Dawes and Gerard simultaneously. They elbowed their way right into the excited crowd.“They speak truth,amadoda!” cried Dawes. “They are not Igazipuza. They are my servants.”The Zulus stared, then fell back. The delight wherewith the Natal natives hailed their master, who had come to their aid in what they imagined a most critical time, beggars description.“How did you escape, Sintoba, and where have you been hiding?” said Dawes, wonderingly.Then Sintoba proceeded to explain how he and Fulani and the boy had been put into a hut together, but, unlike their master, had been left unbound, and fairly well treated in general. But something they had overheard led them to attempt their escape, and in the confusion which had followed daring the mastering of the warriors to resist the invasion of the king’s troops, and the despatching of the women and cattle to a place of safety, they had succeeded in slipping away and hiding among the rocks on the opposite side of the hollow to that whereon the battle had taken place. Here they had been discovered by the victoriousimpi, and being taken for Igazipuza, would have been massacred on the spot but for the intervention of the sub-chief, Matela, who suggested that they should be led before Sobuza, who, with his advance guard, was then in pursuit of Vunawayo and a few surviving fugitives.“Whau, Jandosi! YourAmakafulahave had a narrow escape from the spears of our people,” said Sobuza, quizzically. “Almost as narrow a one as you yourself had from the bite of The Tooth of the Igazipuza. And now let us stand beneath the rock of death and see if these wizards have been able to take to themselves wings and fly down unhurt.”All misgivings on that score, however, was soon set at rest. At the foot of the cliff, shattered, shivered into a horrible mangled mass, lay the body of Vunawayo—a great gash over the heart, showing where it had received the stab which had, as by a hair’s breadth, saved Gerard from being dragged over by the fierce and desperate savage. At this ghastly evidence of the terrible fate from which he had so narrowly escaped, Gerard shuddered.“Há! Jeriji!” said Sobuza, with a grim smile. “My broadumkonto(the short-handled stabbing spear) has done its work well, as well as your fists did among those Amakafula dogs near the Umgeni. That was a great day; but this has been a greater one.”“It has indeed, Sobuza,” answered Gerard. “And so yours was the stroke that saved my life? Well, we are very much more than quits now, at any rate.”Close beside the shattered remains of Vunawayo, lay those of the warrior who had leaped of his own accord from the summit, choosing rather to die by his own act than that his enemies should have the satisfaction of boasting that they had slain him.“The wizards have died hard, and we have had a right merry fight,” said Sobuza, turning away. “With more men we could have crushed them quicker, but then we should not have had so grand a fight. I think, Jeriji, that the Great Great One knew this when he sent but a thousand men, for in such blood-letting do we keep our spears sharp in these peaceable times.”As they rejoined theimpi, it became evident that an altercation of some kind was going forward; the parties thereto being a young unringed man and an Udhloko warrior.“It is mine, I say!” vociferated the former, who was being backed up by more and more of his friends. “It is mine! I won it!”“You won it!” was the contemptuous reply of thekehla. “Ha!umfane(‘Boy,’ i.e. an unringed man). I have it. I took it. Come now, you, and take it!”“I will,” shouted the other in answer to this direct challenge. And supported by a gathering number of his friends he rushed upon the ringed man. The latter, however, seemed equally well supported. Spears waved threateningly as the parties confronted each other. It seemed as if civil strife was going to follow upon the extermination of the legitimate enemy.“Peace!” cried Sobuza, sternly. “What it this, that the king’s hunting-dogs snarl against each other?”“This, father,” appealed the young warrior. “That gun is mine. I won it fairly. Jeriji promised it. He said, ‘If you get near Jandosi when we attack, if you are the first to reach his side, that double gun shall be yours. I promise it.’ That was the ‘word’ of Jeriji. And was I not the first to reach his side, I and my kinsmen?Whau! There is Jeriji. Ask him, my father. Ask him if such was not his word?”“Nkumbi-ka-zulu speaks every word of the truth,indunaof the king,” said Gerard. “I did promise him the gun on those terms, and he has won it fairly.”Thus called upon to adjudicate, Sobuza heard what the other side had to say, and the fact that the warrior in whose possession it now was had only picked up the gun instead of having taken it from an enemy in battle went far towards simplifying matters. It had been thrown away early in the conflict by Vunawayo, who, not understanding firearms, had been so violently kicked at the first discharge that he had elected, and wisely, to fight with such weapons as he did understand. So the chief decreed that Nkumbi-ka-zulu had fairly earned the weapon, and it was handed over to him forthwith, to the huge delight of the young warrior and his friends, and as Gerard promised to make some sort of present to the man who had been dispossessed, the dispute was settled to the satisfaction of all parties.“Pooh! Don’t mention it!” declared Dawes, in reply to Gerard’s apologetic explanation of how he had come to pledge away what was not his property. “You could not more completely have hit upon the right thing to do. If you had been as near that beastly stake as I was, Ridgeley, you’d think you had got off dirt cheap at the price of a gun, I can tell you. Besides, are we not in the swim together and jointly? That young scamp, Nkumbi! Well, he has earned it fairly this time, more so than by jockeying us over it as he tried to do before. Eh, Nkumbi?” And Dawes translated his last remark for the benefit of the young warrior, who, with his confederates, received it with shouts of laughter and great good humour.The open plain in front of the kraal was one great sea of stirring life as theimpicame up. Thither were gathered all the cattle of the Igazipuza, upwards of a thousand of them, and numbers of sheep and goats. Among these squatted or moved dispirited groups of women, sad-faced and resigned; even the children seemed to have lost their lightheartedness, and cowered, round-eyed with awe and apprehension. All had been collected and assembled there by a portion of the king’s force told off for the purpose, and were to be taken as captives and spoils to the king’s kraal; and these were started off thither there and then.But before this was done an earnest conference had been held between the two white men and the Zulu leaders. After all that had taken place, said John Dawes, he and his comrade were extremely anxious to trek away home. It would be highly inconvenient to travel all round by Ulundi, though on another occasion they hoped to pay a special visit to the king. Meanwhile they had now recovered their cattle and trek-oxen, and they would like to leave the Zulu country for the present. But in consideration of the valuable aid rendered, at any rate, by Gerard, to the king’s troops, and further as some compensation for the detention and peril they had undergone, at the hands of those who were, after all, the king’s subjects, he proposed that Sobuza should award them a share in the cattle seized from the Igazipuza.The chief took snuff and began to deliberate. He was not sure whether he could do this upon his own responsibility, he said. Recovering their own property was one thing, claiming an award out of the “eaten-up” cattle seemed very much another. How many did Jandosi think would meet his requirements?Dawes replied that seventy-five head about represented a moderate compensation. Sobuza, however, did not receive the proposal with enthusiasm. Finally it was agreed that sixty head should be allowed, on the express stipulation that no further claim should be made upon the king or the Zulu nation either by the two white men or any of their native followers. As for driving them, he, Sobuza, could not assist them. He was responsible to the king for every man in theimpi, and could not upon his own responsibility send any of the king’s subjects out of the Zulu country. The difficulty, however, might be met by pressing into the service two or three of the Igazipuza boys who were young enough to have escaped the massacre of the fighting men and old enough to understand cattle-driving. So, having obtained their share of the spoil, Dawes and Gerard bade a cordial farewell to Sobuza and the Zuluimpi, and inspanned, and once more the crack, crack of the whips and the shouts of the drivers, Sintoba and Fulani, resounded cheerily as they started for home.But the errand of the king’s troops was not quite completed. The hollow had been effectively scoured in search of fugitives hiding away, but none such had been found. Save the few who had broken through, only in order to make their last stand upon the summit of the Tooth, none had thought of escape. All had fallen where they had stood, fighting desperately to the last.“Now will we put in the fire to this nest of wizards!” cried Sobuza aloud.Hardly had he given the signal, than smoke was seen rising from the huts, gathering in dense volumes, and, lo, from four different points simultaneously, bright flames broke forth, and as the whole huge kraal, now one vast sheet of leaping, devouring fire, gave forth in uninterrupted salvo its heavy crackling roar, there went up from the ranks of the king’s warriors, mustering in crescent formation to watch the completion of their errand of retribution, the thunder of a fierce war-song of victory and exultation.“As lightning we smote them,Where, where are they now?The sons of the lightning,The wizards of thunder?Where, too, is their dwelling,Their cattle, their cornfields?“The bolt fell upon them,The thunder-cloud smote them;The might of ‘The Heavens’In fury it burned them—It smote and it burned them—Its ruin destroyed them!“The wizards are scatteredIn blood and in ashes;The roar of the LionIn thunder pursued them;The praise of the LionHis children re-echo;The praise of the Lion,The Lion of Zulu,The Lord of the Nations!”The flames sunk low, sunk into red heaps of ashes pierced with bright and glowing caverns. A dense cloud of smoke overhung the hollow; and now the king’simpi, marching in companies, was moving up towards the ridge. The two waggons, with their full spans of oxen creaking up the rocky way, had already gained the entrance to the hollow, and their owners, riding on horseback, for both the steeds had been recovered too, paused for a moment on the ridge to look back. Their peril and captivity was at an end. They were being brought out in something like a triumphal procession. Far on in front, the dust was rising from the great herd of cattle and the crowd of captives. Behind, below, lay the gruesome and blood-stained hollow. The thunder of the war-song echoed from the slopes, and the rhythmic movement of the lines of shields of marching warriors was a fitting accessary to the lurid background of the picture, the amphitheatre of cliffs, “The Tooth,” the pyramid of Death in the centre, its dismal burdens still dangling against its face, and below, the great smouldering circle of blackening ashes, while the dense smoke cloud mounting to the heavens in the grey and murky noontide, as from the crater of a volcano, proclaimed to all, far and near, that the king’s justice had been executed, and that the power of the dreaded, indomitable, bloodthirsty Igazipuza had now become a thing of the past.

Meanwhile Gerard, with a perfect agony of dread and apprehension at his heart, was speeding with his young Zulu allies in the direction of “The Tooth.” Though they could hardly hope to gain it unobserved, yet by way of neglecting no precaution, they crept along as much as possible under cover of the bush. Fortunately, the approaches were well-known to Gerard, who was thus able to guide his party straight to the point by which alone it was accessible.

“See, there!” exclaimed Nkumbi-ka-zulu, suddenly, touching his arm. “Au! the wizards!”

They had got the face of the great rock pyramid almost in section. Looking up, Gerard beheld with a shudder the hanging bodies, which he had first seen from a distance. They were very near now, quite near enough to make out the features of the tortured victims, who, however, appeared to be dead, for they hung motionless against the cliff. Shuddering again, Gerard recognised in the drawn, ghastly countenances those of the three Swazis.

There were still only the three, yet from this he augured no good thing. That horrible stake on the apex of the mount—he could not see that. Did it, too, hold its tortured writhing victim? What had they done with John Dawes, with Sintoba, Fulani, and the other natives? And then he began to hope that for some purpose they might yet have been spared. If so, it might not be too late.

“Now, Nkumbi,” he whispered eagerly. “Up we go! This is the side. I will be first at the top; do you keep close behind me. There cannot be many up there. The place will not hold more than a few, and besides, all their fighting force will be busy with Sobuza.”

As they drew near the summit of the gruesome rock of death, a strange, unwonted stillness reigned. Could it be that the place was deserted? Had the savages already accomplished their horrible work and gone away? Gerard’s heart beat like a hammer as he climbed the last bit of steep rocky path, and he could hardly see. His brain seemed to swim.

Suddenly a strange, rumbling, scuffling sound met his ears, the sound as of a struggle. Mingling with it were quick, deep-toned ejaculations. A wave of a great relief surged round his heart, for he recognised one of the voices. He was not, then, too late.

In a moment he gained the summit, and this was what he saw.

In the centre of the depressed hollow, arrayed in all the grotesque and hideous paraphernalia of a witch-doctor, the great lion’s skin draping him from head to foot, stood Ingonyana, surrounded by half a dozen warriors. Beside him rose the grim, pointed stake, empty now, and ready to receive another victim. And the victim was there. Struggling in the grasp of four athletic savages, struggling with all the might of a powerful and sinewy frame, bound as he was, straining every nerve and muscle, was a white man. They had passed areimround his neck, and were trying to draw his head down almost to his knees, in a word, to truss him like a fowl, preparatory to impaling him upon that hideous stake. And in this man, Gerard recognised at a glance John Dawes.

So intent were all upon the execution of their barbarous task, that the approach of the party took place absolutely unheeded. To fling himself upon the warriors who were straggling with his friend was to Gerard the work of a fraction of an instant. To empty his revolver into the head of one, and the body of another was that of the same iota of time. Then as the remaining two with a yell of surprise started back to seize the weapons, which they had dropped while engaged in their straggle with the prisoner, they were speared by the Zulus who had followed close behind Gerard.

“Usútu! Death to theabatagati!” thundered Nkumbi-ka-zulu, hurling a casting assegai full at the chief.

Ingonyama, however, caught it deftly on his shield, and charged forward upon the thrower, followed by his six remaining warriors. Bending the air with their ferocious blood-shout, the Igazipuza, having recovered from their momentary surprise, strove now to bear back the assailants, to press them over the cliff’s brow. But the blood of the young Ngobamakosi warriors was up. Not an inch did they give way, and numerically the odds were in their favour. Hand to hand—slashing, parrying, thrusting—they fought.

So swift was the attack—so hard pressed by the ferocious and desperate freebooters was Gerard and his allies, that the former had not even so much as a moment of time wherein to release Dawes. He could only stand before him to protect him with his life. Then suddenly seizing his opportunity, he slipped his rifle between the shoulders of two of the striving Ngobamakosi, and hardly taking aim pressed the trigger. Ingonyama leaped in the air, and fell heavily forward, the blood pouring from a small round hole in his forehead.

“Au! Between the eyes has his life been let out!” cried Nkumbi-ka-zulu, unconsciously echoing the words of the dead chief himself, uttered so prophetically over the lion’s skin which he still wore.

And, remembering the words, despair was in the hearts of the bystanders; but despair to the intrepid, almost fanatical Igazipuza meant only a fresh access of desperation. So far from the fall of their chief inspiring them with dismay, it only nerved them to resistance more stubborn, more ferocious than ever.

Three out of the six were already slain, one almost disabled from wounds. Three likewise of the Ngobamakosi were down—so far man for man. The remaining three, pressed back inch by inch, were already at the cliff’s brow. As for asking quarter that was the last thing in the world they would ever have dreamed of. Gerard now found the opportunity to cut thereimswhich bound his friend, and thrust his revolver into the hand of the latter.

Hardly had he done so when a terrific uproar arose beneath—the royal shout ofUsútu. On it came, surging upward, and immediately there sprang upon the apex of The Tooth some five or six warriors. The red circle showed them to be enemies, the panting chests and hacked shields and the quick eager way in which they turned to glance back as soon as they had gained the summit, showed them to be fugitives. A gasp of surprise escaped the two white men as they caught sight of the foremost. It was Vunawayo.

“Ha!Umlúngu!” cried the latter, as he sighted Gerard, “I told you we should meet again on the point of The Tooth! And we have.”

There was something so terrific, so appalling in the very aspect of the gigantic savage, as covered with blood, his evil features working in a most fiendish and malignant grin, he darted like lightning upon Gerard, that even the latter might have been excused if he had felt momentarily unnerved. Unluckily, too, his foot slipped, so that his rifle bullet, instead of meeting his assailant full in the chest, only hummed past the latter’s ear. He was at the mercy of his formidable foe. Parrying with his shield the blow aimed at him by Gerard’s dabbed rifle, Vunawayo made a furious stab. But Gerard, avoiding it, gripped his assailant by the legs and threw him. The agile and powerful Zulu, however, was half up in a moment, and the straggle became a hand-to-hand one. No assistance either could Dawes or the Ngobamakosi give, all their efforts being fully taxed to hold their own against this new accession of strength to the side of their enemies.

“Au,’mlúngu! I told you our meeting would be a long one,” growled Vunawayo, between his set teeth, as they rolled nearer and nearer to the brow of the cliff. Gerard the while felt every muscle in his powerful young frame cracking, strained as it was to prevent the savage from freeing the hand which held the assegai. Moments seemed years—nearer and nearer to the fatal brink the combatants rolled. Then the fierce and desperate savage, suddenly jerking free his left wrist, seized his adversary by the throat.

Then Gerard felt that his end had come. His eyes seemed squeezed out of his head. The whole world was spinning round with him. A tug—a final effort—his opponent had got him to the edge of the height. He was going—both were going—

The air rang with the deep-throated “Usútu!” as Sobuza and his followers came swarming over the edge of the summit. Gerard was conscious of a spout of warm blood over his face, for the moment blinding him; of the relaxing grip of his adversary; of a plunge and scuffle as the body of the latter crashed over the brink—of the grasp of powerful hands dragging him back to life and safety. Then, half choked, his brain swimming, he rose to his feet, and took in what had happened—what was happening—the last act in the suppression of the redoubtable freebooting clan.

It all took place in a moment. The summit was alive with warriors, with tossing shields and bristling weapons, all pressing forward upon one man.

He was standing fronting them like a stag at bay—standing on a projecting pinnacle of rock, balancing himself right over the abyss. He was a man of large, fine stature, and his eyes flashed with the elation of a heroic courage, as covered by his great shield, and a broad assegai flourished aloft in his right hand, he defied his slayers to approach.

“Ho, hunting-dogs of the king, here is your quarry! Come and seize it,” he shouted, in deep, mocking tones. “What, afraid? The king’simpiafraid of one man! What a sight for the spirit of Tyaka! Ha! I am the last of the Igazipuza, and the whole of the king’simpifears me—fears me!” he repeated, in a kind of long-drawn chant—a very death-song, in fact.

Now the summit sloped down to the pinnacle of rock whereon the man stood. To attack him hand-to-hand was certain death, for his object was plain—to seize and drag into the abyss with him whoever should approach, and thus to die true to the traditions of his order, an enemy’s life in his hand. Assegais thrown at him from above he only laughed at, parrying them easily with his shield. Sobuza and his warriors were beside themselves with helpless rage. The jeering laughter and contemptuous defiance of the man goaded them to madness. But how to get at him? The chief was too proud to admit himself beaten by asking the aid of the firearms of his white allies, whereas they, in sheer admiration of the man’s desperate intrepidity, forebore to use them. Even John Dawes, notwithstanding his recent rough treatment and narrow escape from the most barbarous of deaths, could hardly bring himself to fire upon this sole survivor of the race which had so abominably ill-used him.

But the difficulty solved itself unexpectedly. The savage, seeing Gerard pushing his way to the front—seeing, too, the rifle in his hand, mistook his intentions. If they were not going to purchase the pleasure of taking his life at the price of losing one of their own, they should not have it for nothing.

“Ho, cowards!” he roared with flashing eyes. “Ho, cowardly dogs who fear one man. Go, tell your king I spit at his head-ring! Igazi—pu—za!” And as the last long-drawn note of the ferocious war-shout of his tribe escaped his lips, he turned and sprang out into empty air, and a dull, heavy thud and the clink of metal upon stones rising upward to the ears of those above, told that the last of the Igazipuza warriors had died even as those who had gone before him had died—fierce, stubborn, formidable to the end, but unyielding.

A gasp of relief, admiration, awe, went up from the spectators of this powerfully tragic scene. Then they turned to leave the mount of death.

“Whau! these areabatagatiindeed!” quoth Sobuza. “But they are right valiant fighters.”

“And this, my father, what shall we do with it?” said one of the warriors, designating the body of Ingonyama, which lay just as it had fallen, covered with the great lion’s skin. “Shall we not place it on ‘the point of the Tooth,’ that even the very birds may behold the fate of the enemies of the Great Great One?”

“The king’s orders did not say that,” replied Sobuza, who was not free from motives of class-feeling. “Ingonyama was a chief, and a brave man, and now he is dead. Let him lie in peace, for was he not a chief?”

“What of this?” said Dawes, touching the lion’s skin.

“We want it not,” answered Sobuza. “It, too, looks liketagati. See! The life was let out of it and its wearer by the same hole.”

“That’s a fact,” said Dawes. “But, if you’re so particular, we are not. We are going to have this—eh, Ridgeley?” And he plucked the lion’s skin from the body of the dead chief.

The Zulus stared, then shrugged their shoulders. A white man might do all kinds of things which were not lawful for themselves, wherefore they did not think so very much of the act.

As they descended from the dreadful hill of slaughter, Dawes narrated all that had befallen him since Gerard had left—his jeopardy in the kraal, and how he had held Ingonyama at the point of his revolver, and that within a few yards of his dancing warriors; then his bold attempt at trekking away, the shooting of the councillor, Sonkwana, the fight, and his own recapture. Nothing on earth had saved him from the frightful fate to which he had been adjudged, but the fact of the lateness of the hour—that and the arrival of the king’simpiat dawn. It was too dark to put him to death that evening, and so he had spent the night a close prisoner, with so many hours of silence and darkness before him wherein to look forward to the terrible torture which awaited him the next day.

Before dawn, however, had come tidings that the king’simpiwas marching upon the place, and he was dragged forth into the midst of the whole horde of exasperated barbarians, clamouring like wolves for his blood. But it had been decided to send emissaries to the king’sinduna, and meanwhile he was taken to the summit of The Tooth.

“It’s a mercy you turned up when you did, Ridgeley,” he concluded. “Five minutes later, and I’d have been kicking on that stake. Faugh!”

Then Gerard, in turn, related his own experiences. Dawes listened attentively—gravely.

“It was a lucky day for both of us when you dragged that same Sobuza out of the water, over the Umgeni Falls, and a lucky day for me when Cetywayo took it into his head that it was time to suppress the Igazipuza,” he said seriously. “And it was a lucky day, too, for me the day I ran against you knocking around Maritzburg, down on your luck; for I don’t stick at telling you, Ridgeley, that there’s not a chap in forty would have carried through that blockade-running business with the pluck and dash and, above all, cool soundness of judgment you showed. And but for that, where should I have been?”

Gerard reddened.

“Have you quite done making a speech, Dawes?” he said, laughing confusedly. “Because, if so, let’s talk about other things. What has become of Sintoba, and the rest of them?”

Dawes’s countenance fell.

“Hang me if I know,” he said. “From the time they strapped me up I saw no more of the people. The Swazis were hung over here, poor devils, as you saw; but I didn’t see that. It was done just before they lugged me up. I’m afraid though these brutes have made mincemeat of them.”

“What are we going to do, now?” said Gerard. “I suppose we can trek home again.”

“Do? Why, just this. We’ll go to the king’s kraal and claim compensation for the loss of our time and liberty and all the funk we’ve been put in. And we’ll get it, too.”

“Hadn’t we better let well alone?” suggested Gerard. “We have got our stock back. Would it not be best to inspan quietly, and trek right away out of the country?”

“Perhaps it would be best in this instance,” allowed Dawes, after a moment’s pause; “though I had not intended to do things by halves. By the way, I did show an error of judgment the last time I decided to trek. I ought to have waited quietly until the upshot of your undertaking came off. Yes, I made a mistake that time. It was a direct challenge to them, so to speak. But I say, Ridgeley, what a yarn we’ll have to spin to old Bob Kingsland, when next we see him. Why, he’ll vote us a brace of the biggest liars in Natal.”

Gerard laughed. Then, at the thoughts suggested by the mention of Mr Kingsland, he subsided into silence. Not long, however, was he suffered to enjoy his own thoughts, for as they reached the foot of the pyramid a considerable hubbub greeted them.

The remainder of the king’simpihad come up. In the midst of this, hustled, pushed, occasionally kicked, and threatened at every step by a multitude of spears, were three unfortunate natives.

“Kill them!” “Cut them to pieces!” “They are Igazipuza!” “We saw them in the fight!” “They have washed off their red wizard’s mark!” were some of the tumultuous shouts which went up from the crowd.

“Amakafula? Hau! Only listen to that! No. They are Igazipuza, cowardly dogs, not like the rest, who were brave!” roared the savages, who, having tasted what should have been enough blood, clamoured for more. The lives of the wretched men seemed not worth a moment’s purchase. An exclamation escaped both Dawes and Gerard simultaneously. They elbowed their way right into the excited crowd.

“They speak truth,amadoda!” cried Dawes. “They are not Igazipuza. They are my servants.”

The Zulus stared, then fell back. The delight wherewith the Natal natives hailed their master, who had come to their aid in what they imagined a most critical time, beggars description.

“How did you escape, Sintoba, and where have you been hiding?” said Dawes, wonderingly.

Then Sintoba proceeded to explain how he and Fulani and the boy had been put into a hut together, but, unlike their master, had been left unbound, and fairly well treated in general. But something they had overheard led them to attempt their escape, and in the confusion which had followed daring the mastering of the warriors to resist the invasion of the king’s troops, and the despatching of the women and cattle to a place of safety, they had succeeded in slipping away and hiding among the rocks on the opposite side of the hollow to that whereon the battle had taken place. Here they had been discovered by the victoriousimpi, and being taken for Igazipuza, would have been massacred on the spot but for the intervention of the sub-chief, Matela, who suggested that they should be led before Sobuza, who, with his advance guard, was then in pursuit of Vunawayo and a few surviving fugitives.

“Whau, Jandosi! YourAmakafulahave had a narrow escape from the spears of our people,” said Sobuza, quizzically. “Almost as narrow a one as you yourself had from the bite of The Tooth of the Igazipuza. And now let us stand beneath the rock of death and see if these wizards have been able to take to themselves wings and fly down unhurt.”

All misgivings on that score, however, was soon set at rest. At the foot of the cliff, shattered, shivered into a horrible mangled mass, lay the body of Vunawayo—a great gash over the heart, showing where it had received the stab which had, as by a hair’s breadth, saved Gerard from being dragged over by the fierce and desperate savage. At this ghastly evidence of the terrible fate from which he had so narrowly escaped, Gerard shuddered.

“Há! Jeriji!” said Sobuza, with a grim smile. “My broadumkonto(the short-handled stabbing spear) has done its work well, as well as your fists did among those Amakafula dogs near the Umgeni. That was a great day; but this has been a greater one.”

“It has indeed, Sobuza,” answered Gerard. “And so yours was the stroke that saved my life? Well, we are very much more than quits now, at any rate.”

Close beside the shattered remains of Vunawayo, lay those of the warrior who had leaped of his own accord from the summit, choosing rather to die by his own act than that his enemies should have the satisfaction of boasting that they had slain him.

“The wizards have died hard, and we have had a right merry fight,” said Sobuza, turning away. “With more men we could have crushed them quicker, but then we should not have had so grand a fight. I think, Jeriji, that the Great Great One knew this when he sent but a thousand men, for in such blood-letting do we keep our spears sharp in these peaceable times.”

As they rejoined theimpi, it became evident that an altercation of some kind was going forward; the parties thereto being a young unringed man and an Udhloko warrior.

“It is mine, I say!” vociferated the former, who was being backed up by more and more of his friends. “It is mine! I won it!”

“You won it!” was the contemptuous reply of thekehla. “Ha!umfane(‘Boy,’ i.e. an unringed man). I have it. I took it. Come now, you, and take it!”

“I will,” shouted the other in answer to this direct challenge. And supported by a gathering number of his friends he rushed upon the ringed man. The latter, however, seemed equally well supported. Spears waved threateningly as the parties confronted each other. It seemed as if civil strife was going to follow upon the extermination of the legitimate enemy.

“Peace!” cried Sobuza, sternly. “What it this, that the king’s hunting-dogs snarl against each other?”

“This, father,” appealed the young warrior. “That gun is mine. I won it fairly. Jeriji promised it. He said, ‘If you get near Jandosi when we attack, if you are the first to reach his side, that double gun shall be yours. I promise it.’ That was the ‘word’ of Jeriji. And was I not the first to reach his side, I and my kinsmen?Whau! There is Jeriji. Ask him, my father. Ask him if such was not his word?”

“Nkumbi-ka-zulu speaks every word of the truth,indunaof the king,” said Gerard. “I did promise him the gun on those terms, and he has won it fairly.”

Thus called upon to adjudicate, Sobuza heard what the other side had to say, and the fact that the warrior in whose possession it now was had only picked up the gun instead of having taken it from an enemy in battle went far towards simplifying matters. It had been thrown away early in the conflict by Vunawayo, who, not understanding firearms, had been so violently kicked at the first discharge that he had elected, and wisely, to fight with such weapons as he did understand. So the chief decreed that Nkumbi-ka-zulu had fairly earned the weapon, and it was handed over to him forthwith, to the huge delight of the young warrior and his friends, and as Gerard promised to make some sort of present to the man who had been dispossessed, the dispute was settled to the satisfaction of all parties.

“Pooh! Don’t mention it!” declared Dawes, in reply to Gerard’s apologetic explanation of how he had come to pledge away what was not his property. “You could not more completely have hit upon the right thing to do. If you had been as near that beastly stake as I was, Ridgeley, you’d think you had got off dirt cheap at the price of a gun, I can tell you. Besides, are we not in the swim together and jointly? That young scamp, Nkumbi! Well, he has earned it fairly this time, more so than by jockeying us over it as he tried to do before. Eh, Nkumbi?” And Dawes translated his last remark for the benefit of the young warrior, who, with his confederates, received it with shouts of laughter and great good humour.

The open plain in front of the kraal was one great sea of stirring life as theimpicame up. Thither were gathered all the cattle of the Igazipuza, upwards of a thousand of them, and numbers of sheep and goats. Among these squatted or moved dispirited groups of women, sad-faced and resigned; even the children seemed to have lost their lightheartedness, and cowered, round-eyed with awe and apprehension. All had been collected and assembled there by a portion of the king’s force told off for the purpose, and were to be taken as captives and spoils to the king’s kraal; and these were started off thither there and then.

But before this was done an earnest conference had been held between the two white men and the Zulu leaders. After all that had taken place, said John Dawes, he and his comrade were extremely anxious to trek away home. It would be highly inconvenient to travel all round by Ulundi, though on another occasion they hoped to pay a special visit to the king. Meanwhile they had now recovered their cattle and trek-oxen, and they would like to leave the Zulu country for the present. But in consideration of the valuable aid rendered, at any rate, by Gerard, to the king’s troops, and further as some compensation for the detention and peril they had undergone, at the hands of those who were, after all, the king’s subjects, he proposed that Sobuza should award them a share in the cattle seized from the Igazipuza.

The chief took snuff and began to deliberate. He was not sure whether he could do this upon his own responsibility, he said. Recovering their own property was one thing, claiming an award out of the “eaten-up” cattle seemed very much another. How many did Jandosi think would meet his requirements?

Dawes replied that seventy-five head about represented a moderate compensation. Sobuza, however, did not receive the proposal with enthusiasm. Finally it was agreed that sixty head should be allowed, on the express stipulation that no further claim should be made upon the king or the Zulu nation either by the two white men or any of their native followers. As for driving them, he, Sobuza, could not assist them. He was responsible to the king for every man in theimpi, and could not upon his own responsibility send any of the king’s subjects out of the Zulu country. The difficulty, however, might be met by pressing into the service two or three of the Igazipuza boys who were young enough to have escaped the massacre of the fighting men and old enough to understand cattle-driving. So, having obtained their share of the spoil, Dawes and Gerard bade a cordial farewell to Sobuza and the Zuluimpi, and inspanned, and once more the crack, crack of the whips and the shouts of the drivers, Sintoba and Fulani, resounded cheerily as they started for home.

But the errand of the king’s troops was not quite completed. The hollow had been effectively scoured in search of fugitives hiding away, but none such had been found. Save the few who had broken through, only in order to make their last stand upon the summit of the Tooth, none had thought of escape. All had fallen where they had stood, fighting desperately to the last.

“Now will we put in the fire to this nest of wizards!” cried Sobuza aloud.

Hardly had he given the signal, than smoke was seen rising from the huts, gathering in dense volumes, and, lo, from four different points simultaneously, bright flames broke forth, and as the whole huge kraal, now one vast sheet of leaping, devouring fire, gave forth in uninterrupted salvo its heavy crackling roar, there went up from the ranks of the king’s warriors, mustering in crescent formation to watch the completion of their errand of retribution, the thunder of a fierce war-song of victory and exultation.

“As lightning we smote them,Where, where are they now?The sons of the lightning,The wizards of thunder?Where, too, is their dwelling,Their cattle, their cornfields?“The bolt fell upon them,The thunder-cloud smote them;The might of ‘The Heavens’In fury it burned them—It smote and it burned them—Its ruin destroyed them!“The wizards are scatteredIn blood and in ashes;The roar of the LionIn thunder pursued them;The praise of the LionHis children re-echo;The praise of the Lion,The Lion of Zulu,The Lord of the Nations!”

“As lightning we smote them,Where, where are they now?The sons of the lightning,The wizards of thunder?Where, too, is their dwelling,Their cattle, their cornfields?“The bolt fell upon them,The thunder-cloud smote them;The might of ‘The Heavens’In fury it burned them—It smote and it burned them—Its ruin destroyed them!“The wizards are scatteredIn blood and in ashes;The roar of the LionIn thunder pursued them;The praise of the LionHis children re-echo;The praise of the Lion,The Lion of Zulu,The Lord of the Nations!”

The flames sunk low, sunk into red heaps of ashes pierced with bright and glowing caverns. A dense cloud of smoke overhung the hollow; and now the king’simpi, marching in companies, was moving up towards the ridge. The two waggons, with their full spans of oxen creaking up the rocky way, had already gained the entrance to the hollow, and their owners, riding on horseback, for both the steeds had been recovered too, paused for a moment on the ridge to look back. Their peril and captivity was at an end. They were being brought out in something like a triumphal procession. Far on in front, the dust was rising from the great herd of cattle and the crowd of captives. Behind, below, lay the gruesome and blood-stained hollow. The thunder of the war-song echoed from the slopes, and the rhythmic movement of the lines of shields of marching warriors was a fitting accessary to the lurid background of the picture, the amphitheatre of cliffs, “The Tooth,” the pyramid of Death in the centre, its dismal burdens still dangling against its face, and below, the great smouldering circle of blackening ashes, while the dense smoke cloud mounting to the heavens in the grey and murky noontide, as from the crater of a volcano, proclaimed to all, far and near, that the king’s justice had been executed, and that the power of the dreaded, indomitable, bloodthirsty Igazipuza had now become a thing of the past.

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