“We had not long to wait.  Presently we heard the Butiana war-song swelling loud and long; they had commenced their attack.  I made a sign, and the hundred and fifty men, headed by myself, poured out of the kraal, and getting into a rough line ran up the fifty or sixty yards of slope that intervened between ourselves and the crest of the hog-backed ridge.  In thirty seconds we were there, and immediately beyond us was the main body of the Matuku host waiting the onslaught of the enemy with guns and spears.  Even now they did not see us, so intent were they upon the coming attack.  I signed to my men to take careful aim, and suddenly called out to them to fire, which they did with a will, dropping thirty or forty Matukus.

“‘Charge!’ I shouted, again throwing down my smoking rifle and drawing my revolver, an example which they followed, snatching up their spears from the ground where they had placed them while they fired.  The men set up a savage whoop, and we started.  I saw the Matuku soldiers wheel around in hundreds, utterly taken aback at this new development of the situation.  And looking over them, before we had gone twenty yards I saw something else.  For of a sudden, as though they had risen from the earth, there appeared above the wall hundreds of great spears, followed by hundreds of savage faces shadowed with drooping plumes.  With a yell they sprang upon the wall shaking their broad shields, and with a yell they bounded from it straight into our astonished foes.

“Crash! we were in them now, and fighting like demons. Crash! from the other side.  Nala’s impi was at its work, and still the spears and plumes appeared for a moment against the brown background of the mountain, and then sprang down and rushed like a storm upon the foe.  The great mob of men turned this way and turned that way, astonished, bewildered, overborne by doubt and terror.

“Meanwhile the slayers stayed not their hands, and on every side spears flashed, and the fierce shout of triumph went up to heaven.  There too on the wall stood Maiwa, a white garment streaming from her shoulders, an assegai in her hand, her breast heaving, her eyes flashing.  Above all the din of battle I could catch the tones of her clear voice as she urged the soldiers on to victory.  But victory was not yet.  Wambe’s soldiers gathered themselves together, and bore our men back by the sheer weight of numbers.  They began to give, then once more they rallied, and the fight hung doubtfully.

“‘Slay, you war-whelps,’ cried Maiwa from the wall.  ’Are you afraid, you women, you chicken-hearted women!  Strike home, or die like dogs!  What—­you give way!  Follow me, children of Nala.’  And with one long cry she leapt from the wall as leaps a stricken antelope, and holding the spear poised rushed right into the thickest of the fray.  The warriors saw her, and raised such a shout that it echoed like thunder against the mountains.  They massed together, and following the flutter of her white robe crashed into the dense heart of the foe.  Down went the Matuku before them like trees before a whirlwind.  Nothing could stand in the face of such a rush as that.  It was as the rush of a torrent bursting its banks.  All along their line swept the wild desperate charge; and there, straight in the forefront of the battle, still waved the white robe of Maiwa.