The Kopje Garrison Part 25

"Of course not; but it was of no use to say anything. Our failure has had a strange effect upon the poor fellow, and a word would act upon him like fire upon tinder."

"Yes; but the starvation picnic has had its effect on other people too. Who's he that he should have the monopoly of getting into a pa.s.sion about nothing? I say, though, as we were up there this morning I don't see what is the use of our going up again; there'll be no shade at the top, and we shall be half-roasted."

"Don't come, then," said Lennox quietly. "I'm going up to see if I can follow the scouts with a gla.s.s."

"Don't come?" cried d.i.c.kenson sharply. "Well, I like that! Here's another one touched by the sun. Old Roby is not to have the monopoly of getting into a fantigue."

"Nonsense! I'm not out of temper," said Lennox.

"Not out of temper? Well, upon my word! But I shall come all the same. I would now if it were ten times as hot."

"Very well," said Lennox, drawing his breath hard so as to command his temper, for he felt really ruffled now by the heat and his comrade's way of talking.

They climbed slowly on, step for step, till, as they zigzagged up into a good position which displayed the sun-bathed landscape s.h.i.+mmering in the heat, Lennox caught a glimpse of one of the scouting parties in the distance, and was about to draw his companion's attention to it when d.i.c.kenson suddenly caught at his arm and pointed to a glowing patch of the rock in the full blaze of the sun.

"Look," he said. "Big snake."

"Nonsense!" said Lennox angrily; "there are no snakes up here."

Their eyes met the next instant with so meaning a look in them that both burst out laughing, d.i.c.kenson holding out his hand, which was taken at once.

"I forgive old Roby," he said.

"So do I," said Lennox frankly. "Heat and hunger do upset a man's temper. See our fellows out there?"

He pointed in the direction where he had seen the mounted figures, feeling for his gla.s.s the while.

"Not our men," said d.i.c.kenson, following his example, and together they produced their gla.s.ses.

"Oh yes," said Lennox. "I am certain it was they."

"And I'm as certain it was not," cried d.i.c.kenson.

Their eyes met again; but this time they felt too serious to laugh, and were silent for some moments.

d.i.c.kenson then said frankly:

"Look here, old chap, there's something wrong with us. We've got the new complaint-the Robitis; and we'd better not argue about anything, or we shall have a fight. My temper feels as if it had got all the skin off."

"And I'm as irritable as Roby was this morning. Never mind. Can you make out the mounted men now?"

"No," said d.i.c.kenson after a pause. "Can you?"

"No. They're gone behind that patch of forest. There," he continued, closing his gla.s.s, "let's get up to the top and sit in the men's shelter; there'll be a bit of air up there."

He proved to be right, for a pleasant breeze, comparatively cool, was blowing on the other side of the mountain and tempering the glare of the suns.h.i.+ne, while they found that there was a bit of shade behind a turret-like projection standing out of the granite, looking as if it had been built up by human hands.

There they sat and watched for hours, scanning the veldt, which literally quivered in the heat; but they looked in vain for any movement on the part of the enemy, who had been disturbed by the scouts, and at last made up their minds to go down-truth to tell, moved by the same reason, the pangs of hunger a.s.serting themselves in a way almost too painful to be borne.

"Let's go," said d.i.c.kenson; "they've got right away in safety. I believe the Boers are all asleep this hot day, and in the right of it: plenty to eat and nothing to do."

"Yes, let's go. I'm longing for a long cool drink down below there. Pst! What's that?"

"One of the fellows round there by the gun," said d.i.c.kenson.

"No," whispered Lennox decidedly; "it was close at hand. Did you hear it?"

"Yes. Sounded like the rock splitting in this fiery suns.h.i.+ne."

"More like a piece falling somewhere inside-beneath our feet-and I distinctly heard a soft, echoing rumble."

"Come along down, old man," said d.i.c.kenson. "It's too hot to be up here, and if we stop any longer we shall have something worse than being hungry-a bad touch of the sun. I feel quite ready to go off my head and imagine all sorts of things. For instance, there's a swimming before my eyes which makes me fancy I can see puffs of smoke rising out yonder, and a singing and cracking in my ears like distant firing."

"Where?" cried Lennox excitedly. "Yes, of course. I can see the puffs plainly, and hear the faint cracking of the fire. Bob, my lad, then that sharp sound we heard must have been the reverberation of a gun."

"Oh dear!" groaned d.i.c.kenson. "Come along down, and let's get our heads in the cool stream and drink like fishes."

"Don't be foolis.h.!.+ Get out your gla.s.s."

"To drink with?"

"No! Absurd! To watch the firing."

"There is no firing, man," cried d.i.c.kenson.

"There is, I tell you."

"Oh, he has got it too," groaned d.i.c.kenson. "Very well; all right-there is fighting going on out there a couple of miles away, and I can see the smoke and hear the cracking of the rifles. But come on down and let's have a drink of water all the same; there's plenty of that."

"You're saying that to humour me," said Lennox, with his gla.s.s to his eyes; "but I'm not half-delirious from sunstroke. Get out your gla.s.s and look. The Boers are coming on in a long extended line, and they must be driving in our scouts."

"You don't mean it, do you, old chap?" cried d.i.c.kenson, dragging out his gla.s.s.

"Yes; there's no mistake about it."

Crack! went a rifle from behind the projection, a few yards away; and directly after, as the two officers began scurrying down, the bugles were ringing out in the market-square, and the colonel gave his orders for supports to go out, check the Boer advance, and bring the scouting party or parties in.

Chapter Thirteen.

Something in the Head.

It was a narrow escape, but the nine men got safely back to quarters, but minus two of their horses. For the Boers had in every case been well upon the alert; their lines had not been pierced, and they followed up the retreating scouts till the searching fire from the kopje began to tell upon their long line of skirmishers, and then they sullenly drew back, but not before they had learnt that there were marksmen in the regiment at Groenfontein as well as in their own ranks.

"That's something, Drew," said d.i.c.kenson as he watched the slow movement of a light wagon drawn by mules. "But only to think of it: all that trouble for nothing-worse than nothing, for they have shot those two horses. Yes, worse than nothing," he continued, "for they would have been something for the pot."

Each of the scouting parties gave the same account of the state of affairs; that is to say, that though to all appearances the country round was clear of the enemy, a keen watch was being kept up, and, turn which way they would, Boers were ready to spring up in the most unexpected places to arrest their course and render it impossible to reach supplies and bring them in.