piece of
evidence. The Matabele told Mr. Burnham who repeated it to the present
writer, that this man wore a hat of a certain shape and size, fastened
up at the side in a peculiar fashion; a hat similar to that which Mr.
Burnham wore himself. Now, these hats were of American make, and Major
Wilson was the only man in that party who possessed one of them, for Mr.
Burnham himself had looped it up for him in the American style, if
indeed he had not presented it to him.

The tragedy seemed to be finished, but it was not so, for as the natives
stood and stared at the fallen white men, from among the dead a man rose
up, to all appearance unharmed, holding in each hand a revolver, or a
'little Maxim' as they described it. Having gained his feet he walked
slowly and apparently aimlessly away towards an ant-heap that stood at
some distance. At the sight the natives began to fire again, scores, and
even hundreds, of shots being aimed at him, but, as it chanced, none of
them struck him. Seeing that he remained untouched amidst this hail of
lead, they cried out that he was 'tagati,' or magic-guarded, but the
indunas ordered them to continue their fire. They did so, and a bullet
passing through his hips, the Englishman fell down paralysed. Then
finding that he could not turn they ran round him and stabbed him, and
he died firing with either hand back over his shoulders at the
slaughterers behind him.

So perished the last of the Wilson patrol. He seems to have been
Alexander Hay Robertson--at least Mr. Burnham believes that it was he,
and for this reason. Robertson, he says, was the only man of the party
who had grey hair, and at a little distance from the other skeletons was
found a skull to which grey hair still adhered.

[Illustration: 'One of them lifted his assegai']

It is the custom among savages of the Zulu and kindred races, for
reasons of superstition, to rip open and mutilate the bodies of enemies
killed in war, but on this occasion the Matabele general, having
surveyed the dead, issued an order: 'Let them be,' he said; 'they were
men who died like men, men whose fathers were men.'

No finer epitaph could be composed in memory of Wilson and his comrades.
In truth the fame of this death of theirs has spread far and wide
throughout the native races of Southern Africa, and Englishmen
everywhere reap the benefit of its glory. They also who lie low, they
reap the benefit of it, for their story is immortal, and it will be