distracted by a companion, thereby losing his bearings. There was
something of a weird and delightful feeling, he says, in mouching
along alone, with a dark, silent square of men and horses looming
behind one. So they marched forward, the one incident, and that a sad
one, being the killing with an assegai of a dog who had followed the
force, and had endangered the success of its movement by barking at a
startled buck. The only noise in the column marching behind the lithe,
wiry guide was the occasional muffled cough of a man and the sharp
snort of an excited horse. When the force was within a mile of
Babyan's impi a halt was called, and the men lay down to sleep in the
freezing cold night. It was not a long sleep, for an hour before dawn
they were in the saddle again, and moving through the darkness as
silently as before towards the enemy's stronghold. When the pass was
reached which led into the valley held by Babyan the column was
prepared for attack, the advance force being under the command of
Baden-Powell.

The guide almost jumped with joy, he says, when he spotted the enemy's
fires. The fight was to begin. The guns were got up, and in a few
minutes they were volleying and thundering, flinging their whirring
shells into the masses of Matabele, whose assegai blades glistened in
the morning sun. While this opening cannonade was proceeding
Baden-Powell found useful work to do. With a few native scouts he
started off on his own account and soon found a large body of the
enemy elsewhere enjoying a bombastic war-dance, which plainly
portended the staggering of humanity and the driving of the British
into the sea. Thinking that Colonel Plumer ought not to miss this
performance, Baden-Powell sent back word of it, and calling together
the Native Levy proceeded to attack the dancers. Their sound of
revelry died away, or changed to something more dismal, when
Baden-Powell and his men came clambering up the rocky height, leaping
over boulders, dodging behind crags, and pouring lead into their
astonished midst. With very little delay the Matabele went to earth,
tumbling pell-mell into their caves and holes, from whence the rattle
of their musketry soon rolled, and where they fancied themselves as
safe as a rabbit in its burrow from the attack of an eagle. To add to
Baden-Powell's difficulty his Native Levy began to show the white
feather, getting behind rocks and wasting their ammunition on the
desert crags. Had the Matabele