These were the first men that I ever killed in war.
As they fell, Leblanc and the rest of our people fired also, the slugs from their guns doing great execution at that range, which was just long enough to allow them to scatter.

When the smoke cleared a little I saw that nearly a dozen men were down, and that the rest, dismayed by this reception, had halted.

If they had come on then, while we were loading, doubtless they might have rushed the place; but, being unused to the terrible effects of firearms, they paused, amazed.

A number of them, twenty or thirty perhaps, clustered about the bodies of the fallen Kaffirs, and, seizing my second gun, I fired both barrels at these with such fearful effect that the whole regiment took to their heels and fled, leaving their dead and wounded on the ground.

As they ran our servants cheered, but I called to them to be silent and load swiftly, knowing well that the enemy would soon return.
For a time, however, nothing happened, although we could hear them talking somewhere near the cattle kraal, about a hundred and fifty yards away.