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<p>Illustration from H. Rider Haggard's <i>Maiwa's Revenge</i>, Chapter VII, by Thure de Thulstrup. 
</p><p>The scene shows Allan Quatermain ordering the men to fire, after getting them to wait until the most opportune moment:
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<td valign="top" style="border: none; padding: 4px 10px;">"Now they are going to begin," I thought to myself, and I was not far wrong, for in another minute the body of men divided into three companies, each about five hundred strong, and, heralded by a running fire, charged at us on three sides. Our men were now all well under cover, and the fire did us no harm. I mounted on a rock, so as to command a view of as much of the koppie and plain as possible, and yelled to our men to reserve their fire till I gave the word, and then to shoot low, and load as quickly as possible. I knew that, like all natives, they were sure to be execrable shots, and that they were armed with weapons made out of old gas-pipes, so the only chance of doing execution was to let the enemy get right on to us.
<p>On they came with a rush. They were within eighty yards now, and as they drew near the point of attack, I observed that they closed their ranks, which was so much the better for us.
</p><p>"Shall we not fire, my father?" sung out the captain.
</p><p>"No—confound you!" I answered.
</p><p>"Sixty yards — fifty — forty — thirty. Fire, you scoundrels!" I yelled, setting the example by letting off both barrels of my elephant gun into the thickest part of the company opposite to me. 
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<bdi><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Thure_de_Thulstrup" class="extiw" title="w:en:Thure de Thulstrup"><span title="Swedish-born American illustrator (1848-1930)">Thure de Thulstrup</span></a>
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August 1888<div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1888-08-00T00:00:00Z/10</div>
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. LXXVII, No. 459, <b>26</b>  (p. 351)