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Page 76
As those who read this history will probably long ago have gathered, I
am, to be honest, a bit of a coward, and certainly in no way given to
fighting, though somehow it has often been my lot to get into
unpleasant positions, and to be obliged to shed man's blood. But I
have always hated it, and kept my own blood as undiminished in
quantity as possible, sometimes by a judicious use of my heels. At
this moment, however, for the first time in my life, I felt my bosom
burn with martial ardour. Warlike fragments from the "Ingoldsby
Legends," together with numbers of sanguinary verses in the Old
Testament, sprang up in my brain like mushrooms in the dark; my blood,
which hitherto had been half-frozen with horror, went beating through
my veins, and there came upon me a savage desire to kill and spare
not. I glanced round at the serried ranks of warriors behind us, and
somehow, all in an instant, I began to wonder if my face looked like
theirs. There they stood, the hands twitching, the lips apart, the
fierce features instinct with the hungry lust of battle, and in the
eyes a look like the glare of a bloodhound when after long pursuit he
sights his quarry.
Only Ignosi's heart, to judge from his comparative self-possession,
seemed, to all appearances, to beat as calmly as ever beneath his
leopard-skin cloak, though even /he/ still ground his teeth. I could
bear it no longer.
"Are we to stand here till we put out roots, Umbopa--Ignosi, I mean--
while Twala swallows our brothers yonder?" I asked.
"Nay, Macumazahn," was the answer; "see, now is the ripe moment: let
us pluck it."
As he spoke a fresh regiment rushed past the ring upon the little
mound, and wheeling round, attacked it from the hither side.
Then, lifting his battle-axe, Ignosi gave the signal to advance, and,
screaming the wild Kukuana war-cry, the Buffaloes charged home with a
rush like the rush of the sea.
What followed immediately on this it is out of my power to tell. All I
can remember is an irregular yet ordered advance, that seemed to shake
the ground; a sudden change of front and forming up on the part of the
regiment against which the charge was directed; then an awful shock, a
dull roar of voices, and a continuous flashing of spears, seen through
a red mist of blood.
When my mind cleared I found myself standing inside the remnant of the
Greys near the top of the mound, and just behind no less a person than
Sir Henry himself. How I got there I had at the moment no idea, but
Sir Henry afterwards told me that I was borne up by the first furious
charge of the Buffaloes almost to his feet, and then left, as they in
turn were pressed back. Thereon he dashed out of the circle and
dragged me into shelter.
As for the fight that followed, who can describe it? Again and again
the multitudes surged against our momentarily lessening circle, and
again and again we beat them back.
"The stubborn spearmen still made good
The dark impenetrable wood,
Each stepping where his comrade stood
The instant that he fell,"
as someone or other beautifully says.
It was a splendid thing to see those brave battalions come on time
after time over the barriers of their dead, sometimes lifting corpses
before them to receive our spear-thrusts, only to leave their own
corpses to swell the rising piles. It was a gallant sight to see that
old warrior, Infadoos, as cool as though he were on parade, shouting
out orders, taunts, and even jests, to keep up the spirit of his few
remaining men, and then, as each charge rolled on, stepping forward to
wherever the fighting was thickest, to bear his share in its repulse.
And yet more gallant was the vision of Sir Henry, whose ostrich plumes
had been shorn off by a spear thrust, so that his long yellow hair
streamed out in the breeze behind him. There he stood, the great Dane,
for he was nothing else, his hands, his axe, and his armour all red
with blood, and none could live before his stroke. Time after time I
saw it sweeping down, as some great warrior ventured to give him
battle, and as he struck he shouted "/O-hoy! O-hoy!/" like his
Berserkir forefathers, and the blow went crashing through shield and
spear, through head-dress, hair, and skull, till at last none would of
their own will come near the great white "/umtagati/," the wizard, who
killed and failed not.
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