So! it is done! By the head of Chaka! they
break--they are pushed back--now the wave of slaughter seethes along
the sands--now the foe is swept like floating weed, and from all the
line there comes a hissing like the hissing of thin waters. "S'gee!"
says the hiss. "S'gee! S'gee!"
There, my father, I am old. What have I do with the battle any more,
with the battle and its joy? Yet it is better to die in such a fight
as that than to live any other way. I have seen such--I have seen many
such. Oh! we could fight when I was a man, my father, but none that I
knew could ever fight like Umslopogaas the Slaughterer, son of Chaka,
and his blood-brother Galazi the Wolf! So, so! they swept them away,
those Halakazi; they swept them as a maid sweeps the dust of a hut, as
the wind sweeps the withered leaves. It was soon done when once it was
begun. Some were fled and some were dead, and this was the end of that
fight. No, no, not of all the war. The Halakazi were worsted in the
field, but many lived to win the great cave, and there the work must
be finished. Thither, then, went the Slaughterer presently, with such
of his impi as was left to him. Alas! many were killed; but how could
they have died better than in that fight? Also those who were left
were as good as all, for now they knew that they should not be
overcome easily while Axe and Club still led the way.
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