were
knocked out and we had to quit. We retreated in close order into the
bush on the opposite side of the vlei--the other side from the scherms.
We went slowly on account of the disabled men and horses.

'There was a lull, and Wilson rode up to me and asked if I thought I
could rush through to the main column. A scout on a good horse might
succeed, of course, where the patrol as a whole would not stand a
chance. It was a forlorn hope, but I thought it was only a question of
here or there, and I said I'd try, asking for a man to be sent with me.
A man called Gooding said he was willing to come, and I picked Ingram
also because we had been through many adventures together, and I thought
we might as well see this last one through together.

'So we started, and we had not gone five hundred yards when we came upon
the horn of an impi closing in from the river. We saw the leading men,
and they saw us and fired. As they did so I swerved my horse sharp to
the left, and shouting to the others, "Now for it!" we thrust the
horses through the bush at their best pace. A bullet whizzed past my
eye, and leaves, cut by the firing, pattered down on us; but as usual
the natives fired too high.

'So we rode along, seeing men, and being fired at continually, but
outstripping the enemy. The peculiar chant of an advancing impi, like a
long, monotonous baying or growling, was loud in our ears, together with
the noise they make drumming on their hide shields with the assegai--you
must hear an army making those sounds to realise them. As soon as we got
where the bush was thinner, we shook off the niggers who were pressing
us, and, coming to a bit of hard ground, we turned on our tracks and hid
in some thick bush. We did this more than once and stood quiet,
listening to the noise they made beating about for us on all sides. Of
course we knew that scores of them must have run gradually back upon the
river to cut us off, so we doubled and waited, getting so near again to
the patrol that once during the firing which we heard thickening back
there, the spent bullets pattered around us. Those waiting moments were
bad. We heard firing soon from the other side of the river too, and
didn't know but that the column was being wiped out as well as the
patrol.

'At last, after no end of doubling and hiding and riding in a triple
loop, and making use of every device known to a scout for destroying a
spoor--it took us about three hours and a half to cov