and after telling the sentry to be well upon the alert, he led his men slowly and cautiously straight away out into the black darkness of the veldt, but without hearing another sound till they were, as far as could be judged, a good two hundred yards from the last outpost, when the men were halted and stood in the black darkness listening once more, before swinging: round to the right and getting back by a curve to somewhere near the starting-place.
The next moment the young men joined hands and stood listening to an unmistakable sound away to their right and nearer to the kopje. The sound was distant enough to be very soft, but there it was, plainly enough—the calm, quiet crunching up of the food a span of oxen had eaten, indicative of the fact that they had been pulled up by their drivers and were utilising their waiting time by chewing the cud.
“Forward!” whispered Lennox, and his men crept after him without a sound, every one full of excitement, for the general idea was that they were about to surprise some convoy wagon that had gone astray.
A minute later the munching of the oxen sounded quite loudly, and the little party was brought to a halt by a deep, gruff voice saying in Boer Dutch:
“What a while you’ve been! How much higher can we get?”
“Fix bayonets!” cried Lennox sharply, and a yell of dismay arose, followed by a dozen random shots, as the metallic clinking of the keen, dagger-like weapons was heard against the muzzles of the men’s rifles.
The shots fired seemed to cut the black darkness, and the exploded powder spread its dank, heavy fumes in the direction of the men’s faces, but as far as Lennox could make out in the excitement of leading his party on in a charge, no one was hurt; and the next minute his little line was brought up short, several of the men littering angry ejaculations, and as many more bursting into a roar of laughter.
Chapter Four.
Ways and Means.
“Here, what in the name of wonder!” cried Dickenson angrily. “Yah! Keep those horns quiet, you beast.”
“What is it?” cried Lennox excitedly.
“Roast-beef, sir—leastwise to-morrow, sir,” cried one of the men. “We’ve bay’neted a team of oxen.”
“Speak the truth, lad,” cried another from Lennox’s left. “We’ve been giving point in a gun-carriage.”
“Silence in the ranks!” cried Lennox sternly as he felt about in the darkness, joined now by his comrade, and found that their charge had been checked by a big gun, its limber, and the span—six or eight and twenty oxen—several of the poor beasts having received thrusts from the men’s bayonets.
It was a strange breastwork to act as a protection, but from behind its shelter a couple of volleys were sent in the direction of the flashes of light which indicated the whereabouts of the enemy, and this made them continue their flight, the surprise having been too great for their nerves; while the right interpretation was placed upon the adventure at once—to wit, that in ignorance of the fact that Colonel Lindley had done in the darkness exactly what might have been expected, and occupied the kopje, the Boers had brought up a heavy gun with the intention of mounting it before morning, and had failed.
“What’s to be the next?” said Dickenson.
“Next?” cried Lennox. “You must cover us with three parts of the men while with the rest I try to get the gun right up to the kopje.”
It was no easy task, for the driver and foreloper of the team had fled with the artillerymen and the rest of the Boers, while the pricked oxen were disposed to be unmanageable. But British soldiers are accustomed to struggle with difficulties of all kinds in war, and by the time the Boers had recovered somewhat from their surprise, and, urged by their leaders, were advancing again to try and recover the lost piece, the team of oxen were once more working together, and the ponderous gun was being slowly dragged onward towards the rocky eminence.
It was terribly hard work in the darkness; for the way, after about a hundred yards or so over level veldt, began to ascend, and blocks of granite seemed to be constantly rising from the ground to impede the progress of the oxen.
In spite of all, though, the gun and its limber were dragged on and on, while in the distance a line of tiny jets of fire kept on spurting out, showing that the enemy had recovered from the panic and were coming on, firing as they came, the bullets whizzing over the heads of our men, but doing no harm.
“Steady! steady! and as quietly as you can,” said Lennox in warning tones, as he kept on directing and encouraging his men. “They are firing by guesswork.—Ah! that won’t do any good,” he muttered, for just as he was speaking Dickenson and his men, who had spread out widely, began to reply; “it will only show our weakness.”
He looked forward again in the direction the oxen were being driven; but the kopje was invisible, and now he altered his opinion about the firing of Dickenson’s detachment, for he felt that it would let the captain know what was going on, and bring up support.
He was quite right, for in a very little time Captain Roby had felt his way to them, learnt the cause of the firing, and carefully covered the retreat till the intricacies of the rocky ascent put a stop to further progress in the gloom, and a halt was called till morning.
The rest of the night passed in the midst of a terrible suspense, for though the Boer firing gradually died out, as if the leaders had at last awakened to the fact of its being a mere waste of ammunition, the British detachment, scattered here and there about the captured gun, lay in momentary expectation of the enemy creeping up and then making a rush.
“But they will not,” said Lennox quietly. “They’ll wait till morning, and creep up from stone to stone and bush to bush, trying to pick us off.”
“You need not be so cock-sure about it,” growled Dickenson. “They are in force, and must have known from our fire how few we were. A rush would do it.”
“Yes; but they will not rush,” replied Lennox. “They understand too well the meaning of the word bayonet. Cock-sure or no, they’ll make no dash; but as soon as it begins to be light we shall have a hailstorm.”
“Nonsense!” said Dickenson tetchily; “there’s no sign of rain.”
“I did not say rain,” replied Lennox, “but hail—leaden hail from every bit of cover round.”
“Oh, I see,” said Dickenson. “Well, two sides can play at that game; and I fancy we have most cover here.”
Lennox was quite right; for as soon as the first pale grey of a lovely dawn began to make objects stand up in an indistinct way upon the level veldt around the kopje, the sharp cracks of rifle after rifle began at every object that displayed movement upon the eminence, and the pattering of bullets among the rocks often preceded the reports of the Boer rifles.
But by this time Captain Roby had communicated with the colonel in the village, and had taken his steps, sending his men well out in the enemy’s direction to take advantage of every scrap of cover to reply wherever it was necessary, which they did, their efforts, as the time went on, to some extent keeping the Boer fire down.
