Already he seemed to feel their keen assegais piercing his body and quivering in his flesh. However, to his astonishment, these savages, acting under the orders of their leader, did nothing worse then than strip him of his belts and tunic, and, strange enough, examined him to see if he was wounded anywhere. He then understood their leader to say--for he had picked up a few words of their not unmusical language--that they would give him as a present to Cetewayo. Their leader proved to be one of the sons of Sirayo--one of the original causes of the war, and has been described as a model Zulu warrior, lithe, muscular, and without an ounce of superfluous flesh on his handsome limbs; one who could launch an assegai with unerring aim, and spring like a tiger to close quarters with knife or knobkerie--the same warrior who lay long a prisoner in the gaol of Pietermaritzburg after the war was over. They dragged Florian across the river at a kind of ford, and partly took him back the way he had come from Isandhlwana, and awful were the sights he saw upon it--the dead bodies of comrades, all frightfully gashed and mutilated, with here and there a wounded horse, which, after partially recovering from its first agony, was cropping, or had cropped, the grass around in a limited circle, which showed the weakness caused by loss of blood; and Florian, with a prayerful heart, marvelled that his savage captors spared _him_, as they assegaied these helpless animals in pure wantonness and lust of cruelty. All day they travelled Florian knew not in what direction, and when they found him sinking with exertion they gave him a kind of cake made of mealies to eat, and a draught of _utywala_ from a gourd. This is Kaffir beer, or some beverage which is like thin gruel, but on which the army of Cetewayo contrived to get intoxicated on the night before the battle of Ulundi. Early next day he was taken to a military kraal, situated in a solitary and pastoral plain, surrounded by grassy hills, where he was given to understand he would be brought before the king. Like all other military kraals, it consisted of some hundred beehive-shaped huts, surrounded by a strong wooden palisade, nine feet high and two feet thick. He was thrust into a hut, and for a time left to his own reflections. The edifice was of wicker-work made of wattles, light and straight, bent over at regular distances till they met at the apex, on the principle of a Gothic groined arch. The walls were plastered, the roof neatly thatched; the floor was hard and smooth. Across it ran a ledge, which served as a cupboard, where all the clay utensils were placed, and among these were squat-shaped jars capable of holding twenty gallons of Kaffir beer.