wave of the advancing army had swept over them. Below, the panic was
complete and terrible, and soldiers, native drivers, and camp-followers
were running wildly in all directions.

One party of the 24th's men, about sixty strong, had gathered together
and stood like a little island. The incessant fire of their rifles
covered them with white smoke, while a dense mass of Zulus pressed upon
them. Many of the soldiers were flying for their lives; others again,
when they found that their retreat was cut off, had gathered in groups
and were fighting desperately to the last. Here and there mounted men
strove to cut their way through the Zulus, while numbers of fugitives
could be seen making for the river, hotly pursued by crowds of the
enemy, who speared them as they ran.

"It is frightful, frightful, Tom! I cannot bear to look at it."

For a few minutes the fight continued. The crack of the rifles was
heard less frequently now. The exulting yell of the Zulus rose louder
and louder. On the right Colonel Durnford with his cavalry essayed to
make one last stand to check the pursuit of the Zulus and give time for
the fugitives to escape; but it was in vain, showers of assegais fell
among them, and the Zulu crowd surged round.

For a time the boys thought all were lost, but a few horsemen cut their
way through the crowd and rode for the river. The artillery had long
before ceased to fire, and the gunners lay speared by the cannons. The
first shot had been fired at half-past eleven, by one o'clock all was
over. The last white man had fallen, and the Zulus swarmed like a vast
body of ants over the camp in search of plunder.

Horror-stricken and sick, the boys shrank back against the rock behind
them, and for some time sobbed bitterly over the dreadful massacre which
had taken place before their eyes. But after a time they began to talk
more quietly.

"Will they come up here, do you think, Dick?"

"No, I don't think so," Dick replied. "They could hardly have seen us
come up here, even if they had been on the look-out on the hills, and as
they reached the back of the mountain before the camp was taken, they
will know that nobody could have come up afterwards. Lie back here; we
cannot possibly be seen from below. They will be too much taken up with
plundering the camp to think of searching this hill. What on earth is
the general doing?--I can see his troops right away on the plain.
Surely he must have heard the