impending battle, but worse. The fraternal feud is
proverbially the most envenomed. Against no white invader--English or
Dutch--were these going forth but against those of their own kindred and
colour, towards whom they felt exactly as Royalist did towards Roundhead
in a different quarter of the globe three centuries earlier.

Through a long, narrow defile, running round the base of the mountain on
which the outlook was posted, streamed the dark human torrent. On over
each roll of plain it poured. At length it halted on a ridge. Grey
whirling clouds of dust close at hand drew nearer and nearer, and
through them the hides and horns of driven cattle. At the sight a
fierce gasp went up from the impi, and the warriors looked for the word
of their leaders to fall on.

The beasts were driven by a large armed force, though smaller
numerically than this which had come to recapture them.

Those in charge, taken by surprise, halted their men. They had walked
into a wasp's nest, yet were not disposed to climb down without an
effort. So they stood waiting.

They had not long to wait. The impi headed straight for the cattle, and
with a decision of purpose that left nothing to be desired, wedged
between them and their drivers, and headed them off in another
direction. The animals, panic-stricken, began to run wildly; cows with
their calves racing one way, staid oxen, caught with the fever of the
scare, now and then charging their new drivers, but these were seasoned
to that sort of thing, and would skip nimbly out of the way, or roll on
the ground, just in time to avoid the head thrust, while to all, each
and every incident risky or laughable, was a source of infinite sport.
One bull--chocolate-hided, sharp-horned--grew more than a danger, for
with that shrill growling bellow emitted by his kind when partly scared
and wholly angered, he drove his horns clean through a young warrior,
flinging the rent carcase furiously in the air. But this in nowise
detracted from the fun in general. Him however they incontinently
assegaied.

The while a hubbub of voices rose loud through the trampling and
bellowing of the cattle, whose drivers were inclined to show fight.
This was in a measure stilled as the leader of the impi strode to the
fore. As a brother of the exiled king he was too big a man for even the
opposition party to treat otherwise than with a sulky respect.

"_Whou_, Qapela!" spoke Dabulamanzi, confronting the lead