Then the silence was rent asunder, and that in most appalling fashion. From twenty thousand fierce throats in concert went up the war-shout--horrible, terrifying--combining the frenzied roars of a legion of maniacs with the snarls and baying of hounds tearing down their prey. One there had heard it before, but not in such awful, soul-curdling volume as this. And then, with heads bent, shields thrust forward, broad spears in strong ready grip, the whole circle of the Ba-gcatya host came surging up the slope. CHAPTER XIX. THE SIGN. Crash! crash! A long, detonating roar, then crash! again. The rock-circle is a perfect ring of flame, sheeting forth in red jets athwart the hanging sulphurous smoke. Death-yells are mingling with the fearful war-shout. Shields are flung high in the air, and dark bodies, leaping, fall forward upon their faces, to be trampled into lifelessness as their own comrades tread them down, not pausing, rushing over them as they lie. "No, no! no quicker," reproves Hazon, who is directing here, where the assailant's force is the strongest, namely, the main body, the _isifuba_ or breast of the _impi_. "Fire steadily and low, as before, but no quicker." His followers growl a ready assent. They are unmitigated ruffians, but terrible and determined fighters. The fanatical fatalism of the Mohammedan creed renders them utterly impervious to panic. They keep up a steady, quick-loading fire into the charging Ba-gcatya, and, aiming low, every shot tells, committing fearful havoc among the serried, onrushing masses. Yet those terrible warriors are dauntless. Whole lines go down; still, others surge over them, and now the charge is but two hundred yards from the line of rocks. The fore ranks hesitate, then come to a halt, crumpling back upon those behind them. The slavers, with a shrill, ringing yell, seeing their opportunity, pour a frightfully raking volley into the momentarily confused mass. Shields are clashed together, spears wildly waving. For the moment it seems as though the Ba-gcatya were fighting with each other, striving to hew their way through their own ranks in their endeavours to escape beyond the reach of that awful and destructive fire. "Give it to them again!" growls Hazon, a lurid gleam in his deep-set, piercing eyes. "But, aim low--aim low!" Again not a shot is thrown away. That side of the savage host falls back hurriedly, leaving the ground bestrewn with bodies, dead, dying, crushed. A perfect storm of exultant cheers greets this move. But if a temporary retreat, it is no rout. In obedience to a rapidly-uttered, whistling signal, fully one-half of the main body swings round and hurls itself with incredible force and fury upon another point of the rock-circle, seemingly the weakest point, for here the rocks are low and apart, and have to be supplemented with bags and bales.