re the horns of spears, they
were numberless as the stars, and like the stars they shone. The morning
breeze came up and fanned them, their plumes bent in the breeze; like
a plain of seeding grass they bent, the plumes of the soldiers ripe for
the assegai. Up over the shoulder of the hill came the sun of Slaughter;
it glowed red upon the red shields, red grew the place of killing; the
white plumes of the chiefs were dipped in the blood of heaven. They knew
it; they saw the omen of death, and, ah! they laughed in the joy of the
waking of battle. What was death? Was it not well to die on the spear?
What was death? Was it not well to die for the king? Death was the arms
of Victory. Victory would be their bride that night, and oh! her breast
is fair.

Hark! the war-song, the Ingomo, the music of which has the power to
drive men mad, rose far away to the left, and was thrown along from
regiment to regiment--a rolling ball of sound--

We are the king's kine, bred to be butchered, You, too, are one of us!
We are the Zulu, children of the Lion, What! did you tremble?

Suddenly Chaka was seen stalking through the ranks, followed by his
captains, his indunas, and by me. He walked along like a great buck;
death was in his eyes, and like a buck he sniffed the air, scenting the
air of slaughter. He lifted his assegai, and a silence fell; only the
sound of chanting still rolled along the hills.

"Where are the children of Zwide?" he shouted, and his voice was like
the voice of a bull.

"Yonder, father," answered the regiments. And every spear pointed across
the valley.

"They do not come," he shouted again. "Shall we then sit here till we
grow old?"

"No, father," they answered. "Begin! begin!"

"Let the Umkandhlu regiment come forward!" he shouted a third time, and
as he spoke the black shields of the Umkandhlu leaped from the ranks of
the impi.

"Go, my children!" cried Chaka. "There is the foe. Go and return no
more!"

"We hear you, father!" they answered with one voice, and moved down the
slope like a countless herd of game with horns of steel.

Now they crossed the stream, and now Zwide awoke. A murmur went through
his companies; lines of light played above his spears.

Ou! they are coming! Ou! they have met! Hearken to the thunder of the
shields! Hearken to the song of battle!

To and fro they swing. The Umkandhlu gives way--it flies! They pour back
across the stream--half of them; the rest are dead. A howl o