rst attacked,
while the remainder sprang forward in the wake of their chief.

"Ho! hunting-dogs of the king, here is your game! _Usu-tu_!" roared
Sobuza, whirling his battle-axe aloft as he leaped to meet these new
assailants. The latter were led by a chief of gigantic stature and
hideous aspect, beneath whose wildly fantastic adornments of flowing
cowhair and long trailing crane's feathers, Gerard, keeping at the side
of Sobuza, had no difficulty in recognising Vunawayo.

"Hah!" growled the latter, as the ringed leader came at him. "Now we
have _men_ to deal with!"

Gerard, recognising his old enemy, had covered him with his revolver,
and drew the trigger. But with incredible quickness Vunawayo bounded
aside, and the ball found its billet in the body of a warrior behind
him. Before he could fire again, Sobuza had met the leader of the
Igazipuza in full shock.

Then it was as a battle of the giants to behold these two. Their
shields clashed together, and remained held at arm's length, pressing
against each other as the heads and interlocked horns of two fighting
bulls, each striving to beat down the other's guard, to draw the other's
stroke by a deft and clever feint; and a false stroke would mean the
death of whichever should make it. The warriors on either side had
rallied around their respective chiefs and champions, to neither of whom
could they render any aid by reason of the desperate fierceness
wherewith they were themselves pressing each other. Gerard, carried
away by the indescribable savagery and excitement of the combat, began
himself to "see red," was hardly, in fact, conscious of his acts. A
sharp sting in the ear, as of a red-hot iron, brought him to himself.
Grinding his teeth in fury he emptied his rifle point-blank into the
body of a warrior whose assegai stroke had so narrowly missed him, then
he was knocked down by the violent contact of a great shield. The
bearer of it had raised his spear to strike when he himself was felled
by a blow of a battle-axe, and at the same time Gerard was seized by
friendly hands and set upon his feet again. Half dazed he continued to
load and fire. He saw men stagger beneath their death wound and sink to
the earth, now foul and slippery with gore. He saw others almost hacked
to pieces as they stood, and then fall to their knees, still thrusting
and stabbing as long as there was life in them; but ever the deafening
roar of the opposing war-cries, the toss