nced some five hundred yards,
Ignosi put himself at the head of the Buffaloes, which regiment was
drawn up in a similar three-fold formation, and gave the word to march,
and off we went, I, needless to say, uttering the most heartfelt
prayers that I might emerge from that entertainment with a whole skin.
Many a queer position have I found myself in, but never before in one
quite so unpleasant as the present, or one in which my chance of coming
off safe was smaller.

By the time that we reached the edge of the plateau the Greys were
already half-way down the slope ending in the tongue of grass land that
ran up into the bend of the mountain, something as the frog of a
horse's foot runs up into the shoe. The excitement in Twala's camp on
the plain beyond was very great, and regiment after regiment was
starting forward at a long swinging trot in order to reach the root of
the tongue of land before the attacking force could emerge into the
plain of Loo.

This tongue, which was some four hundred yards in depth, even at its
root or widest part was not more than six hundred and fifty paces
across, while at its tip it scarcely measured ninety. The Greys, who,
in passing down the side of the hill and on to the tip of the tongue,
had formed into a column, on reaching the spot where it broadened out
again, reassumed their triple-line formation, and halted dead.

Then we--that is, the Buffaloes--moved down the tip of the tongue and
took our stand in reserve, about one hundred yards behind the last line
of the Greys, and on slightly higher ground. Meanwhile we had leisure
to observe Twala's entire force, which evidently had been reinforced
since the morning attack, and could not now, notwithstanding their
losses, number less than forty thousand, moving swiftly up towards us.
But as they drew near the root of the tongue they hesitated, having
discovered that only one regiment could advance into the gorge at a
time, and that there, some seventy yards from the mouth of it,
unassailable except in front, on account of the high walls of
boulder-strewn ground on each side, stood the famous regiment of Greys,
the pride and glory of the Kukuana army, ready to hold the way against
their power as the three Romans once held the bridge against thousands.

They hesitated, and finally stopped their advance; there was no
eagerness to cross spears with these three grim ranks of warriors who
stood so firm and ready. Presently, however, a tall gene