Suddenly they leapt from their cover, and with more courage than I should have expected of them, rushed into the river, proposing to storm us, which, to speak truth, I think they would have done had I not been a fairly quick shot.
As it was, finding that they were losing too heavily from our fire, they retreated in a hurry, leaving their dead behind them, and even a wounded man who was clinging to a rock.

He, poor wretch, was in mortal terror lest we should shoot him again, which I had not the heart to do, although as his leg was shattered above the knee by an Express bullet, it might have been true kindness.

Again and again he called out for mercy, saying that he only attacked us because his chief, who had been warned of our coming "by the White Man," ordered him to take our guns and cattle.
"What white man ?" I shouted.

"Speak or I shoot." There was no answer, for at this moment he fainted from loss of blood and vanished beneath the water.

Then another Basuto, I suppose he was their captain, but do not know for he was hidden in some bushes, called out-- "Do not think that you shall escape, White Men.