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Then, at a signal from Mavovo, they broke into some Zulu war-chant, which they kept up till we reached the stakes. Sammy, too, broke into a chant, but one of quite a different nature. "Be quiet!" I said to him. "Can't you die like a man?" "No, indeed I cannot, Mr. Quatermain," he answered, and went on howling for pity in about twenty different languages.
By all odds the best of these choruses, however, is "The Legend of the Bended Bow," a fine war-chant by Mrs. Hemans. Tradition tells that in ancient Britain the people were summoned to war by messengers who carried a bended bow; the poem tells of the various patriots approached.
To those Ford had but one reply, which developed into a sort of war-chant, discouraging to the peace-loving listeners. "I'm a rooting, tooting, shooting, fighting son-of-a-gun and a good one!" Ford would declaim, and with deadly intent aim a lump of coal, billiard ball, or glass at some unfortunate individual in his audience. "Hit the nigger and get a cigar!
Thus he spoke and ran forward, and, with a roar, after him sprang the soldiers, rank by rank. They were brave men indeed; moreover, they knew that if death lay before them death also awaited him who lagged behind, and it is far better to die with honour than ashamed. On they went, as to the joy of battle, their captain leading them, and as they went they sang the Ingomo, the war-chant of the Zulu.
I noticed that they were arranged in orderly companies and that a broad open roadway was left between them, running to the southern gate of the market, I suppose to facilitate the movements of so large a crowd. All this multitude received us in respectful silence, though Sammy's howls caused some of them to smile, while the Zulu war-chant appeared to excite their wonder, or admiration.
We were of course pleased at the opportunity of hearing an Indian war-chant, with a skull and thigh-bone accompaniment; but what was our astonishment to hear the Indian, a ferocious-looking dog, with an awful scalp-lock, and two streaks of red paint across his chest, clear his voice well for a few seconds, and then begin, without discomposing a muscle of his gravity, "The Laird of Cockpen!"
"You are right," he replied reflectively; "and I apologise, though personally I never enjoyed anything so much as shooting those Matabele. Well, they are gone, and there are plenty more outside. Listen! They are singing their evening hymn," and with his long finger he beat time to the volleying notes of the dreadful Matabele war-chant, which floated up from the plain below.
But Big Ben escaped, and, out of the mazes of half a thousand bungalows and country estates, selected the grounds of James J. Ward for visitation. The self first Mr. Ward knew was when he found him on his feet, quivering and tense, a surge of battle in his breast and on his lips the old war-chant. From without came a wild baying and bellowing of the hounds.
It is worthy of notice that to this date belongs the war-chant of the Modenese sentinels, with its allusions to Troy and Hector, which is recognized as the earliest specimen of the Italian hendecasyllabic meter. The burghs at this epoch may be regarded as luminous points in the dense darkness of feudal aristocracy.
When at length she returned, coming in with her ruthless Spahis, whose terrible passions she feared no more than Vergil's Volscian huntress feared the beasts of the forest and plain, the raven still hovered above her exhausted mare, the torn flag was still in her left hand; and the bright laughter, the flash of ecstatic triumph, was still in her face as she sang the last lines of her own war-chant.
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