A minute more and it had begun.

On up the slope they came in long, wavering lines, several hundreds of them, whistling and screaming, shaking their spears, their war-plumes and hair trappings blown back by the breeze, the lust of slaughter in their rolling eyes.

Two or three of them had guns, which they fired as they ran, but where the bullets went I do not know, over the house probably.
I called out to Leblanc and the Kaffirs not to shoot till I did, for I knew that they were poor marksmen and that much depended upon our first volley being effective.

Then as the captain of this attack came within thirty yards of the stoep--for now the light, growing swiftly, was strong enough to enable me to distinguish him by his apparel and the rifle which he held--I loosed at him with the "roer" and shot him dead.

Indeed the heavy bullet passing through his body mortally wounded another of the Quabies behind.