arriors of the Great King delayed not
a moment. The Bakoni could not stand a second time. Their battle rank
was broken--rolled up as one might roll up a newly-stripped hide. With
wild, shrill shrieks of despair they turned and fled headlong.

Then the roar that went up from the ranks of our warriors was as the
roar of an army of lions. Fleet-footed, they pressed on the disordered
masses of the flying foe, hewing them down like corn, yet still
preserving their own order of battle. The panic which had seized upon
the Bakoni was complete. They were slaughtered as they fell,
slaughtered like stricken sheep, and over them poured the destroying
lines of their devourers--slaying ever, slaying and slaying--showing no
mercy; for these people had rejected the King's mercy with scorn and
insult. The day of mercy was now past.

CHAPTER NINE.

THE LIVING BRIDGE.

We waited no longer, Mgwali and I. We leaped from our shelter, waving
our shields and shouting the King's war-cry. We had to dash through the
glowing ring of ashes which still smouldered redly around our place of
refuge, but if it burnt us we knew it not, for we were not in the mind
to feel hurts. But, as we dashed forth, black and terrible, to take our
share in the slaughter, we found ourselves in the thick of the flying
Bakoni.

In the very midst of them we were, hemmed in so close that, we had but
to move our hands, and with each thrust a man fell, as a slain bullock
when the point of the assegai is placed behind his shoulder, and in this
manner we swiftly cleared a ring around us. At first they saw nothing,
looking neither to the one side nor the other, as they fled, their heads
stretched out before them. But when they did look up, and beheld Zulu
shields right in among them, Zulu spears rising and falling, they
shrieked aloud in their terror, fleeing even more wildly than ever.
Thus we, being but two, were carried along in this flying rout--killing,
killing, till we were well nigh weary. Never a weapon was raised
against us; no resistance even did they attempt. So great was the fear
which was upon them that they allowed themselves to be slain like
cattle, and Mgwali and I slew and slew, and laughed aloud.

We had gained the further edge of the town, and now we thought it time
to get out of the crowd and rejoin our people. So we worked our way
clear without difficulty and turned our faces toward our approaching
countrymen.

Then as we were am