The soldiers caught sight of his tall form as he plunged into battle, and there rose a cry of—­

“Nanzia Incubu!  Nanzia Unkungunklovo!” (Here is the Elephant!) “Chiele!  Chiele!”

From that moment the end was no longer in doubt.  Inch by inch, fighting with splendid gallantry, the attacking force was pressed back down the hillside, till at last it retreated upon its reserves in something like confusion.  At that instant, too, a messenger arrived to say that the left attack had been repulsed; and I was just beginning to congratulate myself, believing that the affair was over for the present, when, to our horror, we perceived our men who had been engaged in the right defence being driven towards us across the plain, followed by swarms of the enemy, who had evidently succeeded at this point.

Ignosi, who was standing by me, took in the situation at a glance, and issued a rapid order.  Instantly the reserve regiment around us, the Greys, extended itself.

Again Ignosi gave a word of command, which was taken up and repeated by the captains, and in another second, to my intense disgust, I found myself involved in a furious onslaught upon the advancing foe.  Getting as much as I could behind Ignosi’s huge frame, I made the best of a bad job, and toddled along to be killed as though I liked it.  In a minute or two—­we were plunging through the flying groups of our men, who at once began to re-form behind us, and then I am sure I do not know what happened.  All I can remember is a dreadful rolling noise of the meeting of shields, and the sudden apparition of a huge ruffian, whose eyes seemed literally to be starting out of his head, making straight at me with a bloody spear.  But—­I say it with pride—­I rose—­ or rather sank—­to the occasion.  It was one before which most people would have collapsed once and for all.  Seeing that if I stood where I was I must be killed, as the horrid apparition came I flung myself down in front of him so cleverly that, being unable to stop himself, he took a header right over my prostrate form.  Before he could rise again, I had risen and settled the matter from behind with my revolver.

Shortly after this somebody knocked me down, and I remember no more of that charge.

When I came to I found myself back at the koppie, with Good bending over me holding some water in a gourd.

“How do you feel, old fellow?” he asked anxiously.

I got up and shook myself before replying.

“Pretty well, thank you,” I answered.

“Thank Heaven!  When I saw them carry you in, I felt quite sick; I thought you were done for.”

“Not this time, my boy.  I fancy I only got a rap on the head, which knocked me stupid.  How has it ended?”

“They are repulsed at every point for a while.  The loss is dreadfully heavy; we have quite two thousand killed and wounded, and they must have lost three.  Looks, there’s a sight!” and he pointed to long lines of men advancing by fours.