ch, which was a constant source
of danger to them, seeing that fire is a deadlier foe even than the
assegai. They were thus engaged when again the Zulus appeared to make an
end of them. Once more the weary soldiers took up their positions, and a
while passed. Now they perceived that the Undi, which had been
advancing, slowly commenced to fall back, a movement that they were at a
loss to understand, till a shout from those who were engaged in
stripping the roof told the glad news that English troops were advancing
to their relief.

These were the remains of No. 3 column, moving down from Isandhlwana.
Little did the general and those with him expect to find a soul living
at Rorke's Drift, for they also had seen the sullen masses of the Undi
retreating from the post, and the columns of smoke rising from the
burning hospital confirmed their worst fears. What then was their joy
when they perceived a Union Jack flying amidst the smoke, and heard the
ring of a British cheer rising from the shattered walls and the defences
of sacks of corn! Forward galloped Col. Russell and his mounted men, and
in five minutes more those who remained of the garrison were safe, and
the defence of Rorke's Drift was a thing of the past; another glorious
page ready to be bound into that great book which is called 'The Deeds
of Englishmen.'

* * * * *

Nearly six months passed before all the dead at Isandhlwana were
reverently buried. Strange were the scenes that those saw whose task it
was to lay them to their rest. Here, hidden by the rank grass, in one
heap behind the officers' tents, lay the bodies of some seventy men, who
had made their last stand at this spot; lower down the hill lay sixty
more. Another band of about the same strength evidently had taken refuge
among the rocks of the mountains, and defended themselves there till
their ammunition was exhausted, and their ring broken by the assegai.
All about the plain lay Englishmen and Zulus, as they had died in the
dread struggle:--here side by side, amidst rusted rifles and bent
assegais, here their bony arms still locked in the last hug of death,
and yonder the Zulu with the white man's bayonet through his skull, the
soldier with the Zulu's assegai in what had been his heart. One man was
found, who, when his cartridges were spent, and his rifle was broken,
had defended himself to the end with a tent-hammer that lay among his
bones, and another was stretched