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"My regiment goes down to war against the white men; give me a shield and a spear, O Captain of the king, that I may fight with my regiment, for I seek a face in the battle." So they gave him a shield and a spear, for they dared not turn away one whose brain was alight with the fire of Heaven. When the sun was high that day, bullets began to fall among the ranks of the Umcityu.
The events following the advance of the various British companies at Isandhlwana are exceedingly difficult to describe in their proper order, since the evidence of the survivors is confused. It would appear, however, that Durnford's mounted Basutos discovered and fired on a portion of the Umcityu regiment, which, forgetting its orders, sprang up and began to charge.
The two men fell on their knees before him, and bowed till their foreheads touched the ground the while giving him his sibonga or titles of praise. "Speak," he said impatiently. "O King," said the young warrior, seating himself Zulu fashion, "I am Nahoon, the son of Zomba, a captain of the Umcityu, and this is my uncle Umgona, the brother of one of my mothers, my father's youngest wife."
When he was spoken to, the man made no answer; he only leaned upon his club looking from left to right along the dense array of innumerable shields. The captains stared at the wanderer, and one of them replied, "This is Nahoon-ka-Zomba, it is the son of Zomba who not long ago held rank in this regiment of the Umcityu.
That day also a great army of King Cetywayo's, numbering twenty thousand men and more, moved down from the Upindo Hill and camped upon the stony plain that lies a mile and a half to the east of Isandhlwana. No fires were lit, and it lay there in utter silence, for the warriors were "sleeping on their spears." With that impi was the Umcityu regiment, three thousand five hundred strong.
Now what would you of the Bee, White Man, the Bee that labours in this Garden of Death, and what brings you here, son of Zomba? Why are you not with the Umcityu now that they doctor themselves for the great war the last war the war of the white and the black or if you have no stomach for fighting, why are you not at the side of Nanea the tall, Nanea the fair?"
At the first break of dawn the Induna in command of the Umcityu looked up from beneath the shelter of the black shield with which he had covered his body, and through the thick mist he saw a great man standing before him, clothed only in a moocha, a gaunt wild-eyed man who held a rough club in his hand.
Then the black-shielded, black-plumed Umcityu arose, company by company, and after them arose the whole vast Zulu army, breast and horns together, and swept down in silence upon the doomed British camp, a moving sheen of spears. The bullets pattered on the shields, the shells tore long lines through their array, but they never halted or wavered.
The impi was made up of the Undi regiment, about three thousand strong, that formed its breast, or centre, the Nokenke and Umcityu regiments, seven thousand strong, that formed its right wing or horn, and the Imbonanbi and Nkobamikosi regiments, ten thousand strong, forming its left horn or wing. That night the impi slept upon its spears and watched in silence, lighting no fires.
Just then there appeared through the gate of the fence a splendid specimen of the Zulu race. The man, who was about thirty-five years of age, was arrayed in a full war dress of a captain of the Umcityu regiment.
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