Page:The true story book.djvu/161

 Slowly, and with all military precaution, Lord Chelmsford and his force moved onward, till at length, when darkness had fallen, they encamped beneath the fatal hill of Isandhlwana. Here, momentarily expecting to be attacked, they remained all night amid the wreck, the ruin, and the dead, but not till the following dawn did they learn the magnitude of the disaster that had overtaken



our arms. Then they saw, and in silence marched from that fatal held, heading for Rorke's Drift, and leaving its mutilated dead to the vulture and the jackal.

Now let us follow the fate of the mob of fugitives, who, driven back from the waggon road by the Undi, plunged desperately into the donga near it, the sole avenue of retreat which had not been