little hill, were, as Fate would have it, Ernest, Jeremy, and the ex-sailor, who had complained of the "sargustic" companion, who, it happened, had just died by his side.
Their revolvers were empty; Ernest's sword had broken off short in the body of a Zulu; Jeremy still had his sword, and the sailor a clubbed carbine.
Presently one of the six Zulus dodged in under the carbine and ran the sailor through. Glancing round, Ernest saw his face turn grey. The honest fellow died as he had lived, swearing hard.
"Ah, you ---- black mate," he sang out, "take that, and be damned to you!" The clubbed rifle came down upon the Zulu's skull and cracked it to bits, and both fell dead together.
Now there were five Zulus left, and only Ernest and Jeremy to meet them. But stay; suddenly from under a corpse up rises another foe. No, it is not a foe, it is Mazooku, who has been shamming dead, but suddenly and most opportunely shows himself to be very much alive. Advancing from behind, he stabs one of the attacking party, and kills him. That leaves four. Then he engages another, and after a long struggle kills him too, which leaves three. And still the two white men stand back to back with flashing eyes and gasping breath, and hold their own. Soaked with blood, desperate, and expecting death, they were yet a gallant sight to see. Two of the remaining Zulus rush at the giant Jeremy, one at Ernest. Ernest, having no effective weapon left, dodges the assegai-thrust and closes with his antagonist, and they roll, over and over, down the hill together, struggling for the assegai the Zulu holds. It snaps in two, but the blade and about eight inches of the shaft remain with Ernest. He drives it through his enemy's throat, who dies. Then he struggles up to see the closing scene of the drama, but not in time to help in it. Mazooku has wounded his man badly, and is following to kill him. And Jeremy? He has struck at one of the Kafirs with his sword. The blow is received on the edge of the cow-hide shield, and sinks half-way through it, so that the hide holds the steel fast. With a sharp twist of the shield the weapon is jerked out of his hand, and he is left defenceless, with nothing to trust to except his native strength. Surely he is lost! But no--with a sudden rush he seizes both Zulus by the throat, one in each hand, and, strong men as they are, swings them wide apart. Then with a tremendous effort he jerks their heads together with such awful force that they fall senseless, and Mazooku comes up and spears them.
Thus was the fight ended.
Ernest and Jeremy sank upon the bloody grass, gasping for breath. The firing from the direction of the camp had now died away, and after the tumult, the shouts, and the shrieks of the dying, the silence seemed deep.
There they lay, white man and Zulu, side by side in the peaceable sunlight; and in a vague bewildered way Ernest noticed that the faces, which a few minutes before looked so grim, were mostly smiling now. They had passed through the ivory gates and reached the land of smiles. How still they all were! A little black-and-white bird, such as flies from ant-hill to ant-hill, came and settled upon the forehead of a young fellow, scarcely more than a boy, and the only son of his mother, who lay quiet across two Zulus. The bird knew why he was so still. Ernest had liked the boy, and knew his mother, and began to wonder as he lay panting on the grass what she would feel when she heard of her son's fate. But just then Mazooku's voice broke the silence. He had been standing staring at the body of one of the men he had killed, and was now apostrophising it in Zulu.
"Ah, my brother," he said, "son of my own father, with whom I used to play when I was little; I always told you that you were a perfect fool with an assegai; but I little thought that I should ever have such an opportunity of proving it to you. Well, it can't be helped; duty is duty, and family ties must give way to it. Sleep well, my brother; it was painful to kill you--very!"
Ernest lifted himself from the ground, and laughed the hysterical laugh of shattered nerves, at this naive and thoroughly Zulu moralising. Just then Jeremy rose, and came to him. He was a fearful sight to see--his hands, his face, his clothes, were all /red/; and he was bleeding from a cut on the face, and another on the hand.
"Come, Ernest," he said, in a hollow voice, "we must clear out of this."
"I suppose so," said Ernest.
On the plain at the foot of the hill several of the horses were quietly cropping the grass, till such time as the superior animal, man, had settled his differences. Among them was Ernest's black stallion, "The Devil," which had been wounded, though slightly, on the flank. They walked towards the horses, stopping on their way to arm themselves from the weapons which lay about. As they passed the body of the man Ernest had killed in his last struggle for life, he stopped and drew the broken assegai from his throat. "A memento!" said he. The horses were caught without difficulty, and "The Devil" and the two next best animals selected. Then they mounted, and rode towards the top of the ridge over which Ernest had seen the body of Zulus lying in reserve. When they were near it Mazooku got down and crept to the crest on his stomach. Presently, to their great relief, he signalled to them to advance: the Zulus had moved on, and the valley was deserted. So the three passed over the neck, that an hour and a half before they had crossed with sixty-one companions, who were now all dead. "I think we have charmed lives," said Jeremy, presently. "All gone except us two. It can't be chance."
"It is fate," said Ernest, briefly.
From the top of the neck they got a view of the camp, which now looked quiet and peaceful, with its white tents and its Union Jack fluttering as usual in the breeze.
"They must be all dead too," said Ernest; "which way shall we go?"
Then it was that Mazooku's knowledge of the country proved of the utmost service to them. He had been brought up in a kraal in the immediate neighbourhood, and knew every inch of the land. Avoiding the camp altogether, he led them to the left of the battle-field, and after two hours' ride over rough country, brought them to a ford of the Buffalo which he was acquainted with, some miles below where the few survivors of the massacre struggled across the river, or were drowned in attempting to do so. Following this route they never saw a single Zulu, for these had all departed in the other direction, and were spared the horrors of the stampede and of "Fugitive's Drift."
At last they gained the farther side of the river, and were, comparatively speaking, safe on Natal ground.
They determined, after much consultation, to make for the little fort at Helpmakaar, and had ridden about a mile or so towards it, when suddenly the Zulu's quick ear caught the sound of firing distant to their right. It was their enemy, the Undi Corps, attacking Rorke's Drift. Leaving Mazooku to hold the horses, Ernest and Jeremy dismounted, and climbed a solitary koppie or hill which just there cropped out from the surface of the plain. It was of an iron-stone formation, and on the summit lay a huge flat slab of almost pure ore. On to this they clambered, and looked along the course of the river, but could see nothing. Rorke's Drift was hidden by a rise in the ground.
All this time a dense thunder-cloud had been gathering in the direction of Helpmakaar, and was now, as is common before sunset in the South African summer season, travelling rapidly up against the wind, set in a faint rainbow as in a frame. The sun, on the other hand, was sinking towards the horizon, so that his golden beams, flying across a space of blue sky, impinged upon the black bosom of the cloud, and were reflected thence in sharp lights and broad shadows, flung like celestial spears and shields across the plains of Zululand. Isandhlwana's Mountain was touched by one great ray which broke in glory upon his savage crest, and crowned him that day's king of death, but the battle-field over which he towered was draped in gloom. It was a glorious scene. Above, the wild expanse of sky broken up by flaming clouds, and tinted with hues such as might be reflected from the jewelled walls of heaven. Behind, the angry storm set in its rainbow-frame like ebony in a ring of gold. In front, the rolling plain, where the tall grasses waved, the broad Buffalo flashing through it like a silver snake, the sun-kissed mountains, and the shadowed slopes.
It was a glorious scene. Nature in her most splendid mood flung all her colour streamers loose across the earth and sky, and waved them wildly ere they vanished into night's abyss. Life, in his most radiant ecstasy, blazed up in varied glory before he sank, like a lover, to sleep awhile in the arms of his eternal mistress--Death.
Ernest gazed upon it, and it sank into his heart, which, set to Nature's tune, responded ever when her hands swept the chords of earth or heaven.