us,"said Hardy. "Put those mealie-bags back again, Wilhelm. That last rushnearly had them down."
"Look out, here is another lot coming!" shouted George, as heindistinctly caught sight of a dark mass advancing towards them. Amoment afterwards a dozen blacks vaulted nimbly on to the parapet, butwere instantly hurled back by a volley of musketry, which carried deathamong the assailants. Three only had made their entrance good. Georgeshot one with his revolver, Hardy bayoneted a second, and Vander Heyden,clubbing his rifle, brained the third, all falling dead within theenclosure.
"Safe once more!" exclaimed Hardy; "but how long is this to go on?"
At this moment a shout was raised that the enemy were forcing their wayinto the hospital, and the sick must be moved, or they would fall intothe hands of the savages. With the utmost difficulty this task wasaccomplished, the soldiers fighting from room to room, and guarding thedoors by turns, while their sick comrades were carried out under thevery eyes of a crowd of swarthy savages, pressing on them withbrandished weapons and yells of fury. Presently the hospital was set onfire, and the flames, rising high and catching the thatch, lit up theterrible scene with a lurid splendour. It guided the bullets of thedefenders, who continued to pour volley after volley into the midst ofthe dense array of their assailants, heaping the ground everywhere roundthe entrenchments with their corpses.
Who can relate the achievements, who can recount the horrors, of thatlong night of trial? It was like a succession of hideous dreams, fromwhich the sleepers were continually being awakened, only to renew themin sleep again. About midnight the little garrison, forced back onevery side by overwhelming numbers, had to retire within an innercircle, formed, like the outer one, by mealie-sacks; and here the samescenes were, hour after hour, renewed in endless succession--of blackwarriors pouring in to the attack, and being driven back by volleys ofmusketry and charges with the bayonet.
At last the dawn broke. The Zulu fire ceased, and the dense array ofthe enemy was seen retiring over the heights by which they hadapproached. The garrison, diminished still further by the casualties ofthe night, stood triumphant in their citadel. The scene which therising sun revealed was one of the most terrible and striking on whichthe eye of man has ever rested. There were the handful of defenders,with their faces blackened with powder or clotted blood, their uniformsragged with bullet-marks and charred by fire, leaning exhausted againstthe walls, or stretched on the ground; and all round the camp the bodiesof the assailants, scattered singly here and there, or piled on heapsupon one another, in some places six and seven deep. There they lay, inevery conceivable attitude of repose or agony, some struck with suddenand almost painless death, others torn by gaping wounds or forced intohideous contortions by acute and protracted torture.
"What a night it has been, Vander Heyden!" exclaimed George, as heleaned on the stalwart Dutchman's arm, giddy with exhaustion. "Ahundred times over I have given myself up for lost. I can hardlybelieve that it is over, and we are safe! It was like a horriblenightmare!--those interminable black faces and whirling spears andferocious shouts! I think I shall never cease to hear them!"
"It has indeed been a tremendous struggle," said the Dutchman. "Ha!what is that shout? They are not returning to the attack, are they, MrBromhead?" he continued, addressing that officer, as, grim with dust andblood, he passed them on his way to the flagstaff.
"No, some of our fellows are in sight, and coming this way--escaped fromIsandhlwana, I suppose. They raised a cheer when they saw that our flagwas still flying, and our men returned it."
George and Vander Heyden followed him, just in time to see the remnantof Glyn's column coming up, headed by Lord Chelmsford himself. Thecommander-in-chief rode forward and looked with approval and admirationon the frail and slender defences, which a handful of brave men hadconverted into an impregnable fortress, on the vast multitude of blackcorpses heaped on every side, and on the gaunt and war-stained figuresof the few defenders. Then he asked,--"Where is the officer incommand?" Lieutenant Bromhead advanced and saluted. "You have donenobly, sir,--you and your gallant followers,--and England owes you herwarmest thanks. Your brave defence has probably averted the mischief Ihad feared, and saved the colony from invasion."
The days which followed this fierce and protracted struggle were, as isusually the case, dull and inactive, the defenders being in truth toomuch exhausted to do more than lounge through the day and recover theirstrength and energies. It was some relief to George to find that FarmerBaylen had returned some time before to Horner's Kraal, so that it wasimpossible to send him immediate news of Ernest's death. Vander Heydenrode over to Colenso as soon as he was able, to break the news toAnnchen that her lover had fallen at Isandhlwana. Walter Baylen wasnearly convalescent, and it was agreed that as soon as he wassufficiently restored he should ride over to his father's house andinform him of their loss. There had been at first some apprehensionthat, notwithstanding the repulse at Rorke's Drift, Cetewayo might be soelated by his success at Isandhlwana as to send his dark-skinnedwarriors over the Tugela to overrun Natal. But the more the Zulu kinglearned of the event of the memorable 22nd of January, the less he feltinclined to be elated. He had killed a thousand of his enemies, nodoubt, but they had probably killed nearly three times that number ofhis best soldiers. He had gained a battle at Isandhlwana, but he hadlost one at the Inioni river; and presently he discovered that not onlyhad another action been fought and lost at Rorke's Drift, but that hisfavourite regiment, the Tulwana, had been half destroyed in it. Morered soldiers, he learned, were coming up "out of the sea" to supply theplace of those lost. He had no means of filling the vacancies that hadbeen caused in his own army. It was no time for sending troops out ofZululand. He would want all he had for its defence. Day after day didthe garrison look across the waters of the Buffalo towards the fatalLion Hill, but they beheld none coming that way, except now and then awounded soldier, who had escaped by some marvel from the fatal field,crawling slowly and painfully over the broken ground to the friendlyshelter where his wounds would be cared for.
It was one of the last days of January, when George and Redgy, who weresitting under shelter of the kraal wall, saw on the river bank whatseemed to be a wounded Zulu, who was making his way with toil and painto the camp.
"Do you see that darky there," said Margetts, "creeping up this way, andkeeping out of sight as much as possible? He is up to no good, Iexpect."
"He seems to me to be wounded," said George, "or rather to be recoveringfrom the effects of a wound. Perhaps he has been lying hurt by theriver's bank, and has just recovered strength to crawl up here."
"Well, if so, we oughtn't to refuse to give the poor beggar shelter, Isuppose," said Redgy. "But we had better not go near him until we havemade sure. These black fellows take it for granted that you are goingto assegay them, and generally try to anticipate the compliment. Herehe comes, crab fashion! Hallo, darky, what may you please to want atRorke's Drift?"
"I want your help, Mr Redgy," was the reply,--"yours and Mr Rivers'.You haven't forgotten Matamo, have you?"
"Hey, what!" exclaimed both the young men, starting up. "Matamo!"continued George. "Why, you don't mean it! I declare it is he! Why,we all thought you were dead, if not buried!"
"No, sir," returned the native, grinning and showing his white teeth."I am not dead, nor buried. There is nobody buried yet at Isandhlwana.But I am almost dead with hunger. Please to give me some food, and Iwill tell you all about it."
Interested and astonished, the young men took Matamo to their tent andsupplied him with food; after which he told his story.
"Mr George, you saw me knocked down by a blow from a knobkerry. I wasstunned, not killed. I lay for some time, and then came to. I tried toget up, but the big Zulu you killed had fallen over me, and the deadhorse lay on the other side of me. I was fast jammed in, but I couldsee under the Zulu's arm what was going on."
"What did you see? Tell us. No one seems to know the exact details,"exclaimed Riv
ers eagerly. "Was the fighting still going on?"
"It was still going on; but there was no chance for the red soldiers.They were nearly all killed. There were half a dozen here, a dozenthere, two dozen there, with hundreds of Zulus round them. Most of themwere standing back to back, and stabbing with their bayonets. They weredropping one after another, but killing at least three men for everyone. I saw one tall man kill five blacks without stopping, but thebayonet stuck for a moment in the ribs of the fifth, and then theyassegayed him. The red soldiers died out, one by one, like the sparksin tinder. But none of of them ran away, and none called out formercy."
"Could you distinguish who held out the