The fight was to begin.

The guns were got up, and in a few minutes they were volleying and thundering, flinging their whirring shells into the masses of Matabele, whose assegai blades glistened in the morning sun.

While this opening cannonade was proceeding Baden-Powell found useful work to do.

With a few native scouts he started off on his own account and soon found a large body of the enemy elsewhere enjoying a bombastic war-dance, which plainly portended the staggering of humanity and the driving of the British into the sea.

Thinking that Colonel Plumer ought not to miss this performance, Baden-Powell sent back word of it, and calling together the Native Levy proceeded to attack the dancers.