The Boers, being warned and awake, beat off the Zulus with great loss to Dingaan, for they had the waggons in front, the koppie behind, and the river to one side.
But there were many on that dreadful night whom no _schimmel_ galloped to warn.

Ah! God, six hundred of them, men and women, maids and children, and little babies at the breast, went down beneath the Zulu assegai in that red dawn.

Six hundred of them slaughtered! Is not the name of the land Weenen--"The Land of Weeping"-- to this day?
We avenged them at the battle of the Blood River indeed; but could vengeance give us back their lives which it had pleased the Lord to take thus fearfully?
So, so, that is the end of my story of the forgotten bygone years.

As I, old Suzanne Botmar, tell it the shadow of that white-topped koppie falls upon this house and beneath my feet is the very spot where the brave _schimmel_ died.

Ralph and Jan would not leave it--no, not even when the British hoisted their flag in Natal, making us English again after all that we had undergone to escape their usurping rule.