t people would have
collapsed once and for all. Seeing that if I stood where I was I must
be killed, as the horrid apparition came I flung myself down in front
of him so cleverly that, being unable to stop himself, he took a header
right over my prostrate form. Before he could rise again, _I_ had risen
and settled the matter from behind with my revolver.

Shortly after this somebody knocked me down, and I remember no more of
that charge.

When I came to I found myself back at the koppie, with Good bending
over me holding some water in a gourd.

"How do you feel, old fellow?" he asked anxiously.

I got up and shook myself before replying.

"Pretty well, thank you," I answered.

"Thank Heaven! When I saw them carry you in, I felt quite sick; I
thought you were done for."

"Not this time, my boy. I fancy I only got a rap on the head, which
knocked me stupid. How has it ended?"

"They are repulsed at every point for a while. The loss is dreadfully
heavy; we have quite two thousand killed and wounded, and they must
have lost three. Looks, there's a sight!" and he pointed to long lines
of men advancing by fours.

In the centre of every group of four, and being borne by it, was a kind
of hide tray, of which a Kukuana force always carries a quantity, with
a loop for a handle at each corner. On these trays--and their number
seemed endless--lay wounded men, who as they arrived were hastily
examined by the medicine men, of whom ten were attached to a regiment.
If the wound was not of a fatal character the sufferer was taken away
and attended to as carefully as circumstances would allow. But if, on
the other hand, the injured man's condition proved hopeless, what
followed was very dreadful, though doubtless it may have been the
truest mercy. One of the doctors, under pretence of carrying out an
examination, swiftly opened an artery with a sharp knife, and in a
minute or two the sufferer expired painlessly. There were many cases
that day in which this was done. In fact, it was done in the majority
of cases when the wound was in the body, for the gash made by the entry
of the enormously broad spears used by the Kukuanas generally rendered
recovery impossible. In most instances the poor sufferers were already
unconscious, and in others the fatal "nick" of the artery was inflicted
so swiftly and painlessly that they did not seem to notice it. Still it
was a ghastly sight, and one from which we were glad to escape; indeed,
I