' And with one long cry
she leapt from the wall as leaps a stricken antelope, and holding the
spear poised rushed right into the thickest of the fray. The warriors
saw her, and raised such a shout that it echoed like thunder against the
mountains. They massed together, and following the flutter of her white
robe crashed into the dense heart of the foe. Down went the Matuku
before them like trees before a whirlwind. Nothing could stand in the
face of such a rush as that. It was as the rush of a torrent bursting
its banks. All along their line swept the wild desperate charge; and
there, straight in the forefront of the battle, still waved the white
robe of Maiwa.
"Then they broke, and, stricken with utter panic, Wambe's soldiers
streamed away a scattered crowd of fugitives, while after them thundered
the footfall of the victors.
"The fight was over, we had won the day; and for my part I sat down upon
a stone and wiped my forehead, thanking Providence that I had lived to
see the end of it. Twenty minutes later Nala's warriors began to return
panting. 'Wambe's soldiers had taken to the bush and the caves,' they
said, 'where they had not thought it safe to follow them,' adding
significantly, that many had stopped on the way.
"I was utterly dazed, and now that the fight was over my energy seemed
to have left me, and I did not pay much attention, till presently I was
aroused by somebody calling me by my name. I looked up, and saw that it
was the chief Nala himself, who was bleeding from a flesh wound in his
arm.
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