up past the stone, running out all that had been recovered in a very few seconds.
Directly after there was a check and a jerk at the officer’s hand, while a cry escaped his lips as he let the line go and stooped to pick up his rifle.
“That’s no good,” began Dickenson.
“Quick, man! Down with you! – Ah! you’ve left your rifle. Cover!”
“Oh!” ejaculated Dickenson; and his jaw dropped, and he stood motionless, staring across the river at the sight before him on the other bank.
“Hands up! Surrender! You’re surrounded!” shouted a rough voice. “Drop that rifle, or we fire.”
Drew Lennox was bent nearly double in the act of raising it as these words were uttered, and he saw before him some twenty or thirty barrels, whose holders had covered him, and apparently only awaited another movement on the young officer’s part to shoot him down as they would have done a springbok.
“Oh dear!” groaned Dickenson; “to come to this!” And he was in the act of raising his hands in token of surrender when his comrade’s head caught him full in the chest and drove him back among the bushes which grew densely at the mouth of the gully.
Crack! crack! crack! crack! rang out half-a-dozen rifles, and Lennox, who as the consequence of his spring was lying right across his comrade, rolled off him.
“Hurt?” panted the latter in agonised tones.
“No. Now then, crawl after me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Creep up level with your rifle, and cover you while you get it.”
“Is it any use, old fellow? There’s about fifty of them over yonder.”
“I don’t care if there are five hundred,” growled Lennox through his teeth. “Come along; we must keep it up till help comes from the laager.”
“Then you mean to fight?” panted Dickenson as he crawled after his leader; while the Boers from the other side kept up a dropping fire right into and up the gully, evidently under the impression that the two officers were making that their line of retreat instead of creeping under cover of the bushes at the foot of the cliff-like bank, till Drew stopped opposite where the abandoned rifle lay upon the stone Dickenson had left, so far unseen.
Where they stopped the bushes were shorter and thinner, and they had a good view of the enemy, who had taken cover close to the edge of their bank and were keeping up a steady fire, sending their bullets searching the dense growth of the ravine, while about a dozen mounted men now appeared, cantering along towards where there was a ford about a mile lower down.
“That’s to surround us, old man,” said Dickenson. “The miserable liars! There isn’t a man this side. But oh, my chest! You’ve knocked in some of my ribs.”
“Hang your ribs! We must get that rifle.”
“Wait till I get my wind back,” panted Dickenson. – “Oh, what a fool I was to lay it down!”
“You were, Bobby; you were,” said Drew quietly. “Here, hold mine, and I’ll dash out and bring it back.”
“No, you don’t!” cried the young officer; and as he crouched there on all fours he bounded out like a bear, seized the rifle from where it lay, and rushed back, followed by the shouts and bullets of four or five Boers, who saw him, but not quickly enough to get an effective aim.
“Now call me a fool again,” panted Dickenson, shuffling himself behind a stone.
It was Drew Lennox’s rifle that spoke, not he, as in reply to the fire they had brought upon them he took careful aim and drew trigger, when one of the Boers sprang up fully into sight, turned half-round, threw up his rifle, and fell back over the edge of the cliff among the bushes similar to those which sheltered the young Englishmen.
“Good shot, lad!”
“Yes. On his own head be it,” said Lennox. “A cowardly ambush. Fire as soon as you can steady yourself. Where are you? I can’t see you.”
“Ahint this stone, laddie,” replied Dickenson coolly enough now. “And you?”
“Behind this one here.”
“That’s right; I was afraid you were only bushed. Ah! my turn,” —crack! – “now. Bull’s-eye, old man.”
As the words left his lips Lennox fired again, and another Boer who was badly hidden sprang up and dropped back.
“Two less,” said Drew in a husky whisper, while crack! crack! went the Boer rifles, and a peculiar shattering echo arose from the far side of the river as the bullets flattened upon the rocks or cut the bushes like knives; while from being few in number they rapidly became more, those of the enemy who had been searching the gully down which the young men had come now concentrating their fire upon the little cluster of rocks and trees behind which they were hidden.
“Don’t waste a cartridge, Bob lad,” said Lennox, whose voice sounded strange to his companion, “and hold your magazine in case they try a rush.”
“Or for those fellows who’ll come round by the ford,” replied Dickenson.
“Never mind them. The firing will bring our lads out, and they’ll tackle those gentlemen.”
“All right. – Ah! I’ve been waiting for you, my friend,” whispered Dickenson, and he fired quickly at one of the enemy who was creeping along towards a spot from which he probably thought he would be able to command the spot where the young Englishmen lay. But he never reached it. He just exposed himself once for a few moments, crawling like a short, thick snake. Then his rifle was jerked upwards to the full extent of the poor wretch’s arm and fell back. He made no other movement, but lay quite still, while the rifles around him cracked and the bullets pattered faster and faster about where the two young men were hidden.
“I say, how queer your voice is!” said Dickenson. “Not hurt, are you?”
“No, and yes. This hurts me, Bob lad. I almost wish I wasn’t such a good shot.”
“I don’t,” muttered the other. “I want to live.” Then aloud, “Don’t talk like that, man! It’s their lives or ours. Hit every one you can. – Phew! that was near my skull. I say, I don’t call this coming fishing.”
He turned towards his comrade with a comical look of dismay upon his countenance after a very narrow escape from death, a bullet having passed through his cap, when whizz! whizz! whirr! half-a-dozen more bullets passed dangerously near.
“Mind, for goodness’ sake!” shouted Lennox, in a voice full of the agony he felt. “Don’t you see that you are exposing yourself?”
“What am I to do?” cried the young officer angrily. “If I lean an inch that way they fire at me, and if I turn this way it’s the same.”
“Creep closer to the stone.”
“Then I can’t take aim.”
“Then don’t try. We’ve got to shelter till their firing brings help.”
“Oh,
