"
"What would you here, Nahoon-ka-Zomba?" asked the Induna.
Then Nahoon spoke slowly. "My regiment goes down to war against the
white men; give me a shield and a spear, O Captain of the king, that I
may fight with my regiment, for I seek a face in the battle."
So they gave him a shield and a spear, for they dared not turn away one
whose brain was alight with the fire of Heaven.
*****
When the sun was high that day, bullets began to fall among the ranks
of the Umcityu. Then the black-shielded, black-plumed Umcityu arose,
company by company, and after them arose the whole vast Zulu army,
breast and horns together, and swept down in silence upon the doomed
British camp, a moving sheen of spears. The bullets pattered on the
shields, the shells tore long lines through their array, but they never
halted or wavered. Forward on either side shot out the horns of armed
men, clasping the camp in an embrace of steel. Then as these began
to close, out burst the war cry of the Zulus, and with the roar of a
torrent and the rush of a storm, with a sound like the humming of a
billion bees, wave after wave the deep breast of the _impi_ rolled down
upon the white men.
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