Now make your men hide among the others that they may find their breath before the fight." So he stopped them as they came.

Scarcely had the last of them vanished into the bushes when the gathering volume of shouts, amongst which I heard a gun go off, told us that Saduko and his band and the pursuing Amakoba were not far away.

Presently they, too, appeared--that is the handful of Amangwane did--not fighting now, but running as hard as they could, for they knew they were approaching the ambush and wished to pass it so as not to be mixed up with the Amakoba.

We let them go through us.
Among the last of them came Saduko, who was wounded, for the blood ran down his side, supporting my hunter, who was also wounded, more severely as I feared.
I called to him.
"Saduko," I said, "halt at the crest of the path and rest there so that you may be able to help us presently." He waved the gun in answer, for he was too breathless to speak, and went on with those who were left of his following--perhaps thirty men in all--in the track of the cattle.

Before he was out of sight the Amakoba arrived, a mob of five or six hundred men mixed up together and advancing without order or discipline, for they seemed to have lost their heads as well as their cattle.