relaxed.
Again Sean opened his mouth but this time the sound he uttered was
without form. The way an old bull buffalo bellows at the heart shot,
that way Sean gave expression to his grief. A low shuddering cry that
carried to the men in the rocks around him and to the Boers in the
saucer above.
He made no attempt to touch Saul. He stared at him.
'Nkosi. ' Mbenjane was appalled at what he saw on Sean's face.
His tunic was stiff with his own dried blood. The graze across his
cheek was swollen and inflamed and it wept pale lymph. But it was the
eyes that alarmed Mbejane.
'N'Kosi.' Mbejane tried to restrain him, but Sean did not bear.
His eyes were glazing over with the madness that had taken the place of
his grief. His head hunched down on his shoulders and he growled like
an animal.
'Take them! Take the bastards!' And he went up and over the rock in a
twisting leap with the bayoneted rifle held against his chest.
'Come on! ' he roared and went up the slope so fast that only one
bullet hit him. But it did not stop him and he was over the lip,
roaring and clubbing and hacking with the bayonet.
From the rocks four hundred of his men swarmed up after him and boiled
over the lip of the saucer. But before they reached Sean he was face
to face with Jan Paulus Leroux.
This time it was no match. Jan Paulus was wasted and sick.
A gaunt skeleton of the man he had been. His rifle was empty and he
fumbled with the reload. He looked up and recognized Sean. Saw him
tall and splattered with blood. Saw the bayonet in his hands and the
madness in his eyes.
'Sean!' He said and lifted the empty rifle to meet the bayonet.
But he could not hold it. With Sean's weight behind it the bayonet
glanced off the stock and went on. Jan Paulus felt the tingling slide
of the steel through his reluctant flesh and he went over backwards
with the bayonet in him.
'Sean,' he cried from his back. Sean stood over him and plucked the
bayonet out. He lifted it high with both hands, his whole body poised
to drive it down again.
They stared at each other. The British charge swept past them and they
were alone. One man wounded in the grass and the other wounded above
him with the bayoneted rifle and the madness still on him.
The vanquished in the grass, who had fought and suffered and sacrificed
the lives of those he loved. victor above him, who had fought and
suffered and sacrificed the lives of those he loved.
The game was war. The prize was a land. The penalty for defeat was
death.
'Maak dit klaar! Make it finished! ' Leroux told him quietly The
madness went out in Sean like the flame of a candle. He lowered the
bayoneted rifle and let it drop. The weakness of his wound caught up
with him and he staggered. With surprise he looked down at his belly
and clasped his hands over the wound, and then he sank down to sit
