Part 21 (1/2)

For a little while the Arabs did not seeed the at the Mazitu, who, I think, they concluded were in full flight Presently, however, they either heard or saw

Oh! what a hubbub ensued All the four hundred of thean to shout at once Soan to climb it, but as they reached the top of the fence were pinned by the Mazitu arrows and fell backwards, while a feho got over becaled in the prickly pears on the further side and were pro the lane with the intention of escaping at the north-gate But before ever they reached the head of thefrom hut to hut, had barred their path They could not face that awful furnace

Now they took another counsel and in a great confused body charged down the ate, and our turn came Hoe raked them as they sped across the open, an easytwo rifles, swearing the while at Hans because he was not there to load forround, to my astonishment I saw Hope, who had left herhis second gun I should explain that during our stay in Beza Toe had taught her how to use a rifle

I called to hio, even after a bullet had pierced her dress

Still, all our shooting could not stop that rush ofmany stretched out behind theate

”My father,” said Mavovo in ate will soon be down We ot through, there were enough of them left to wipe us out five times over Indeed, I do not suppose that up to this time they had actually lost more than forty men A feords explained the situation to Stephen and Brother John, whohter to her mother and wait there with theuns, for if they kept these I was sure they would shoot so their spears only

Then we rushed down the slope and took up our position in a little open space in front of the gate, that noas tottering to its fall beneath the blows and draggings of the Arabs At this tinificent, for the flaot hold of the two half-circles of huts that embraced thetowards us like a thing alive Above us swept a great pall of smoke in which floated flakes of fire, so thick that it hid the sky, though fortunately the wind did not suffer it to sink and choke us The sounds also were alration as it devoured hut after hut, were added the coarse, yelling voices of the half-bred Arabs, as in ateway or each other, and the reports of the guns which , half at hazard

We forate, the Zulus with Stephen and myself in front and the thirty picked Mazitu, co, behind We had not long to wait, for presently down the thing came and over it and the an to pour a mob of white-robed and turbaned men whose mixed and tu squeezed out of a grenadilla fruit

I gave the word, and we fired into that packed mass with terrible effect Really I think that each bullet ht doo or three of them Then, at a coed with their broad spears Stephen, who had got hold of an assegai so a Colt's revolver as he ran, while at their backs came Bausi and his thirty tall Mazitu

I will confess at once that I did not join in this terrific onslaught I felt that I had not weight enough for a scrie of the sort, also that I should perhaps be better e for a chance to be of service, like a half-back in a football field, than in getting eneral row Or mayhap my heart failed me and I was afraid I dare say, for I have never pretended to great courage At any rate, I stopped outside and shot whenever I got the chance, not without effect, filling a hunificent, that fray How those Zulus did go in For quite a long while they held the narrow gateway and themob, much as the Roman called Horatius and his two friends held the entrance to soreat force of I forget whom They shouted their Zulu battle-cry of Laba! Laba! that of their regiment, I suppose, for e, and stabbed and fought and struggled and went down one by one

Back the rest of theed again, reinforced with the thirty Mazitu Now the tongues of fla fence of prickly pear and cacti withered and crackled, and still they fought on beneath that arch of fire

Back they were driven again by the o down He rose and stabbed another, then fell again for he was hard hit

Two Arabs rushed to kill hiht and left, for fortunately my rifle was just reloaded He rose once rappling with an Arab, dashed his head against the gate-post so that he fell Old Bausi, panting like a gra Mazitu and the coing smoke that I could scarcely tell one fro, as theycoainst their rush?

We were in a little circle nohich so us on all sides Stephen got a knock on the head froainstme As I recovered myself I looked round in despair

Noas that I saw a very welcoht, namely Hans, yes, the lost Hans himself, with his filthy hat whereof I noticed even then the frayed ostrich feathers were s by a leather strap at the back of his head He was shareat rate with hisover his shoulder, and behind him came about one hundred and fifty Mazitu

Those Mazitu soon put another co with a roar, they drove back the Arabs, who had no space to develop their line, straight into the jaws of that burning hell A little later the rest of the Mazitu returned with Babeot out and were captured after they had thron their guns The rest retreated into the centre of the market-place, whither our people followed them In this crisis the blood of these Mazitu told, and they stuck to the enemy as Zulus themselves would certainly have done

It was over! Great Heaven! it was over, and we began to count our losses Four of the Zulus were dead and two others were badly wounded-no, three, including Mavovo They brought hi on the shoulder of Babeht, for he was shot in three places, and badly cut and battered as well He looked atheavily, then spoke

”It was a very good fight, ht I can rereater battles, which is well as it is h I never told it you, the first death lot that I dren yonder in Durban was ave me, my father You did but lend it o to the Underworld to join the spirits of my ancestors and of those who have fallen at my side in many wars, and of those women who bore my children I shall have a tale to tell theether ait for you-till you, too, die in war!”

Then he lifted up his arm from the neck of Babe reat titles which I will not set down, and having done so sank to the earth

I sent one of the Mazitu to fetch Brother John, who arrived presently with his wife and daughter He exa could help hieetah,” said the old heathen; ”I have followed hts) ”and am ready to eat the fruit that I have planted Or if the tree prove barren, then to drink of its sap and sleep”

Waving Brother John aside he beckoned to Stephen

”O Wazela!” he said, ”you fought very well in that fight; if you go on as you have begun in tihter of the Flower and her children will sing songs after you have come to join ai of mine and clean it not, that the red rust thereon may put you in mind of Mavovo, the old Zulu doctor and captain hom you stood side by side in the Battle of the Gate, when, as though they inter grass, the fire burnt up the white-robed thieves of men who could not pass our spears”

Then he waved his hand again, and Stephen stepped aside , for he and Mavovo had been very intirief Now the old Zulu's glazing eye fell upon Hans, as sneaking about, I think with a view of finding an opportunity of bidding hiood-bye

”Ah! Spotted Snake,” he cried, ”so you have come out of your hole now that the fire has passed it, to eat the burnt frogs in the cinders It is a pity that you who are so clever should be a coward, since our lord Macumazana needed one to load for him on the hill and would have killed more of the hyenas had you been there”

”Yes, Spotted Snake, it is so,” echoed an indignant chorus of the other Zulus, while Stephen and I and even the mild Brother John looked at hienerally was as patient under affront as a Jew, for once lost his teround, and danced on it; he spat towards the surviving Zulu hunters; he even vituperated the dying Mavovo

”O son of a fool!” he said, ”you pretend that you can see what is hid fro spirit in your lips You calledas you were, and cannot hold an ox by the horns, but at least there is more brain in my stomach than in all your head Where would all of you be now had it not been for poor Spotted Snake the 'coward,' ice this day has saved every one of you, except those whom the Baas's father, the reverend Predikant, has marked upon the forehead to cohter than that burning town?”

Noe looked at Hans, wondering what heus twice, and Mavovo said: ”Speak on quickly, O Spotted Snake, for I would hear the end of your story How did you help us in your hole?”

Hans began to grub about in his pockets, from which finally he produced a match-box wherein there remained but one match

”With this,” he said ”Oh! could none of you see that the men of Hassan had all walked into a trap? Did none of you know that fire burns thatched houses, and that a strong wind drives it fast and far? While you sat there upon the hill with your heads together, like sheep waiting to be killed, I crept away a to any of you, not even to the Baas, lest he should answer me, 'No, Hans, there may be an old woman sick in one of those huts and therefore you must not fire them' In such matters who does not know that white people are fools, even the best of them, and in fact there were several old woateway Well, I crept up by the green fence which I kneould not burn and I caate There was an Arab sentry left there to watch

”He fired at me, look! Well for Hans his mother bore him short”; and he pointed to a hole in the filthy hat ”Then before that Arab could load again, poor coward Hans got his knife into hi blade, which was such as butchers use, from his belt and showed it to us ”After that it was easy, since fire is a wonderful thing Youof itself, like a child, and never gets tired, and is always hungry, and runs fast as a horse I lit six of them where they would burn quickest Then I saved the last ate before the fire ate me up; me, its father, me the Sower of the Red Seed!”

We stared at the old Hottentot in ad head and stared But Hans, whose annoyance had now evaporated, went on in a jog-trotto find the Baas, if he still lived, the heat of the fire forced round to the west of the fence, so that I saas happening at the south gate, and that the Arab h there because you who held it were so few So I ran down to Babe theuard the fence any ate and help you, since otherwise you would all be killed, and they, too, would be killed afterwards Babeers to collect the others and we got here just in ti the Battle of the Gate, O Mavovo That is all the story which I pray that you will tell to the Baas's reverend father, the Predikant, presently, for I am sure that it will please him to learn that he did not teach me to be wise and help all men and always to look after the Baas Allan, to no purpose Still, I aet any azed ruefully at the all but e voice

”Never again,” he said, addressing Hans, ”shall you be called Spotted Snake, O little yellow ive you a new naeneration to generation It is 'Light in Darkness' It is 'Lord of the Fire'”

Then he closed his eyes and fell back insensible Within a few h na to the old Hottentot for all his days Indeed from that day forward no native would ever have ventured to call hi them, far and wide, they becarew less and the tumult within their fiery circle died away For now the Mazitu were returning froht it could be called, bearing in their aruns which they had collected from the dead Arabs, most of whom had thron their weapons in a last wild effort to escape But between the spears of the infuriated savages on the one hand and the devouring fire on the other what escape was there for them? The blood-stained wretches who re the eastern coast of Africa, or in the Isle of Madagascar, alone could tell how many were lost, since of those ent out from them to make war upon the Mazitu and their white friends, none returned again with the long lines of expected captives They had gone to their own place, of which so African city has seemed tothe earth in human for sorry for theht the prisoners up to us, and anised the hideous pock-marked Hassan-ben-Mohao, in which you pro, I received your ht by the wounded lad who escaped from you when you murdered his companions, and to both I sent you an answer If none reached you, look around, for there is one written large in a tongue that all can read”

The round, praying forMrs Eversley, he crawled to her and catching hold of her white robe, begged her to intercede for him

”You made a slave of me after I had nursed you in the spotted sickness,” she answered, ”and tried to kill h you, Hassan, I have spent all the best years of es, alone and in despair Still, for ain”

Then she wrenched herself free frohter

”I, too, forgive you, although you murdered my people and for twenty years made my time a torment,” said Brother John, as one of the truest Christians I have ever known ”May God forgive you also”; and he followed his wife and daughter

Then the old king, Bausi, who had co: ”I aranted you what you asked-nareatly to their honour and causes me and my people to think them even nobler than we did before But, O murderer of e here, not the white people Look on your work!” and he pointed first to the lines of Zulu and Mazitu dead, and then to his burning town ”Look and remember the fate you promised to us who have never harmed you Look! Look! Look! O Hyena of a man!”