While Colonel Buller's force was advancing, the Zulus had moved off by companies in singularly regular formation, and taken post in the rocky ravines at the base of the Euzangonyan Hill, which was covered with thick scrub and high feathery reeds, that swayed to and fro in the wind like a mighty cornfield. After crossing the river, the Irregulars and Mounted Infantry at full speed advanced to within three hundred yards of the foe, and leaped from their saddles, with rifles unslung. The horses were then led forward out of fire, or nearly so, by every third file, told off for that purpose. Kneeling and creeping forward by turns, the fighting line opened a steady fire upon the partly concealed Zulus, whose dark figures were half seen, half hidden amid the smoke that eddied along the slopes of the hill, and this continued till the watchful Buller, who was surveying the position through a field-glass from the summit of a knoll, discovered from a flank movement that the Zulus had a large force in reserve, and, in a wily manner, were luring his troops on to destruction. He ordered his bugle to sound the 'retire' and the whole to recross the river, but not before several men were killed or wounded, with fifteen horses placed _hors de combat_; then the Queen's cavalry were ordered to advance to the attack with lance and sword. In his saddle, Florian watched them advance in imposing order, led by that _preux chevalier_, Drury Lowe, the hero of Zurapore, where the pursuit and the destruction of Tantia Topee were achieved in the Indian war. When Buller's scouting horse, skilled marksmen even from the saddle, and mounted on cattle nimble as antelopes, had partly failed, he could scarcely hope to achieve much with his heavy Lancers and still heavier Dragoon Guardsmen; but sending a troop of the latter to guard against any chance of the Zulus creeping down the bed of the river, he led three troops of Lancers close to the margin, where the marigold figs grew in profusion, and the yellow Kaffir melons, large as 40-pound shot, were floating in the current; and splashing through, he deployed them on some open ground beyond, full of that fiery confidence that there is nothing in war which the genuine dragoon cannot achieve. 'By Jove!' exclaimed Hammersley, 'but it is sad to see these splendid Lancers going in for this kind of work. It is hopeless for them to charge such a position, and attempt, at the lance's point, to ferret these savages out of their holes and dongas.' From the Euzangonyan Hill the Zulus were now firing heavily, but as their rifles were all wrongly sighted--if sighted at all--their bullets went high into the air. Between these and Lowe spread a mealie-field, which he believed to be full of other Zulus, and resolved to let all who might be lurking there feel what the point of a lance is, he rode straight at it.