Now they were between the lip of the first walls, and the Umpondwana soldiers hurled spears at them from the banks, killing many.

But if a man was slain, or even badly wounded, his companions who held him let go, and, if needful, thrust him into the water, who could no longer serve the king.

Then he gripped the soldier who stood in front of the lost one, and the chain dragged on.
"Oh! men of the Umpondwana," cried Sihamba, "had you but half the heart of these, who are brave, we need fear nothing from Dingaan," and the Zulus in the stream who heard her called in answer:-- "You are right, little chieftainess, we are brave." Slowly the black snake-like line pressed forward through the white foam, never heeding the storm of spears that slew continually, till the point of it was well within the third line of walls.

Then the captain, who by some chance had escaped, called an order to those behind him, and the head of the double line leapt off the ridge of rock into deep water, and swimming with their feet, but still gripping with their hands, suffered themselves to be swung round by the current towards the bank, twenty yards away.

Here some rocks jutted out, and these, after a great struggle, they were able to grasp and hold.
Then followed what Suzanne, who was watching from above, afterwards declared to be the strangest sight she had ever seen, for these men, who swung to and fro in the current, anchored, as it were, to the ridge and the bank, made of their living bodies a bridge for their fellows.