_ are broken now. They have only to fear the ordinary
fire of that handful of whites, to surround them, rush in and make an
end.

Of a truth the agency that supplied Lo Bengula with firearms was a
far-seeing benefactor to its countrymen. For those warriors now in the
front line of attack who have rifles, no power on earth can restrain
from using them. They now open fire, hot and heavy but wild. No more
surprise now, no wild rush of overwhelming numbers with the deadly
assegai. The _coup-de-main_ has failed. Like magic the whites are in
position, replying with sparing, but deadly and well-directed fire--as
the plunge and fall of more than one warrior flitting from bush to bush,
testifies. But the forward rush has carried some right among the
remaining horses of the patrol, and the assegai is plied with deadly
effect, as the savages slash right and left, burying their reeking
blades within the vitals of the poor animals. It is something to kill
at any rate, and besides, goes for towards crippling the movements of
their human enemies. "_Jji-jji_! _Jji-jji_!" the ferocious death-hiss
vibrates amid the trampling and squealing and the fall of the
slaughtered animals. And then--what is this? Through and above the
discharge of rifles, the sharp, staccato, barking sound so known to
them, so dreaded by them--as the Maxims speak. Is there no doing
anything with these invulnerable whites? They have left the wheels
behind, even as brave Ziboza has just said, but--they have mounted the
_izikwakwa_ on sticks, each _on three sticks_, and the deadly muzzles
are sweeping round as usual, pouring in their leaden hail.

"Percy--Spence! Up here, quick!" says Blachland--and in a moment they
are within the sheltering boulders of a kopje. Two other men are
already there.

"_Au_! _Isipau_!" cry some of the Matabele, who have seen and
recognised him. And a sharp discharge follows, at least two of the
missiles humming unpleasantly near.

"Watch that point!" says Blachland grimly, designating a spot where a
bit of bare rock surface, the length of a man, showed out in the bush
beneath. And almost with the words his piece went off. A brown,
writhing body rolled forward from the cover, the flung away shield and
assegais falling with a rattle.

"That scalp yours, Blachland," observed one of the American scouts who
was up there with them. "Oh, snakes!"

The last ejaculation is evoked by an uncomfortably near missile, which
g