Or
mayhap my heart failed me and I was afraid. I dare say, for I have
never pretended to great courage. At any rate, I stopped outside and
shot whenever I got the chance, not without effect, filling a humble
but perhaps a useful part.
It was really magnificent, that fray. How those Zulus did go in. For
quite a long while they held the narrow gateway and the mound against
all the howling, thrusting mob, much as the Roman called Horatius and
his two friends held the entrance to some bridge or other long ago at
Rome against a great force of I forget whom. They shouted their Zulu
battle-cry of /Laba! Laba!/ that of their regiment, I suppose, for
most of them were men of about the same age, and stabbed and fought
and struggled and went down one by one.
Back the rest of them were swept; then, led by Mavovo, Stephen and
Bausi, charged again, reinforced with the thirty Mazitu. Now the
tongues of flame met almost over them, the growing fence of prickly
pear and cacti withered and crackled, and still they fought on beneath
that arch of fire.
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