Charge! Part 33

I did not wait to hear any more, and did not try to force my way through the dense pack of our men, but worked hard to get back to the spot where I had been lying down; and upon reaching it, with the satisfactory feeling that there was to be no more fighting that night, I dropped into my old place, after s.h.i.+fting hilt and belt so as not to lie upon them again. Then, in spite of hunger and pain, a comfortable and exhilarating sensation stole over me, which I did not know to be the approach of sleep till I was roused by the reveille, and sprang up in a sitting posture, when the first man my eyes fell on was Denham, who was peering about among the troopers as if for something he had lost.

"Oh, there you are!" he cried as he caught sight of me; and the next minute we were standing together, hand grasping hand.

"Denham, old fellow," I said huskily, "I thought you were either a prisoner or dead."

"Not a bit of it," he replied; "but it wasn't the Boers' fault. Just look at my head."

"I was looking," I said, for a closely-folded handkerchief was tied diagonally across his forehead. "Is the cut deep?"

"Deep? No," he replied. "Deep as the beast could make it-that is, to the bone. I say, what a blessing it is to have a thick skull! My old schoolmaster used to tell me I was a blockhead, and I thought he was wrong; but he was right enough, or I shouldn't be here."

"The loss is bad enough without that," I replied.

"Horrible; but they've paid dearly for it," he said. "But I say, what about rations? We can't starve."

I told him what I had overheard during the officers' talk with the Sergeant.

"Yes," said Denham peevishly; "but that means waiting till to-morrow morning. We must make a sally and get something."

"I wish we could," I said, for now that my mind was at rest I felt ravenously hungry. "Hullo! what's going on there?"

Denham turned sharply, and, to our astonishment, Sergeant Briggs was coming from the gate leading half-a-dozen men stripped to s.h.i.+rt and breeches, carrying in half-quarters of some newly-killed animal.

"Why, hullo!" I cried, "what luck! They've found and been slaughtering an ox."

"Yes," said Denham dryly, "and there's more meat out yonder. We shan't starve. I'd forgotten."

"Forgotten! Forgotten what?"

"It isn't beef," he said quietly. "It's big antelope."

"What! eland?" I cried joyously.

"No; the big, solid-hoofed antelope that eats like nylghau or quagga."

"What do you mean?" I said wonderingly, as I mentally ran over all the varieties of antelope I had seen away on the veldt.

"The big sort with iron soles to their hoofs. Two poor brutes, bleeding to death, dropped about a hundred yards away as we came in last night."

"Horse!" I exclaimed. "Ugh!"

"Oh yes, it's all very well to say 'Ugh!' old proud stomach; but I feel ready to sit down to equine sirloin and enjoy it. Why shouldn't horse be as good as ox or any of the antelopes of the veldt? You wouldn't turn up your nose at any of them."

"But horse!" I said. "It seems so-so-so-"

"So what? Oh, my grandmother! There isn't a more dainty feeder than a horse. Why, he won't even drink dirty water unless he's pretty well choking with thirst. Horse? Why, I wouldn't refuse a well-cooked bit of the toughest old moke that ever dragged a cart."

"But what about fire?" I said.

"Oh, there's plenty of stuff of one kind and another to get a fire together. They break up a box to start it, and then keep it going with bones and veldt fuel. Look; they're coming in with a lot now."

"I say," I cried, as a sudden thought struck me. "Here, Sergeant!"

"What do you say?" cried Denham.

I said it to the Sergeant, proposing that he should make a roasting fire under the chimney of the old furnace; and as I spoke his face expanded into a genial smile.

"Splendid!" he said, and hurried away to shout to Joeboy; and in a very short time the smoke was rolling out of the top of the furnace chimney for probably the first time since the ancient race of miners ceased to smelt their gold-ore in the place marked on the maps of over a century ago as the Land of Ophir, but which has lain forgotten since, till our travellers rediscovered it within the last score of years.

Chapter Twenty Four.

A Very Wild Scheme.

"Well," said Denham some two hours later, "it isn't bad when a fellow's hungry."

"No," I agreed, speaking a little dubiously; "but it would have been much better if we had not known what we were eating." I did not hear any other opinions; for the men were ravenously hungry when the cooking was over, and we had all so many other things to think about.

It had been a very busy morning. Wounds had to be dressed, the uninjured had the task of strengthening the force upon the walls, and another party led the horses out a quarter of a mile to graze. This they were allowed to do in peace, the Boers paying no heed to the proceedings. Then the lookouts, who were furnished with the officers' gla.s.ses, gave warning that strong parties were quietly on the move about a mile away-evidently making a circuit for the purpose of disarming our suspicions-with the intention of swooping round and cutting off the grazing horses. But, as Denham said, they had not all the cunning on their side, for we had taken our precautions. A red flag was hung out, and in answer to the signal the horses were headed in for the gateway at once.

That was sufficient. The Boers, instead of riding along across our position, suddenly swooped round, and came on, five hundred strong, at full gallop, getting so near that they would have cut off some of our valuable horses had not fire been opened upon them from the walls, quite in accordance with the Boers' own tactics; our men lying down and taking deliberate aim, with the result that saddles were emptied and horses galloping riderless in all directions.

However, the party gradually came nearer, till they found that our firing grew hotter and more true; then, utterly discouraged by its deadly effect, they wheeled round again, and went off as hard as their horses could gallop.

"Let them try the same ruse again," said the Colonel, as he turned from where he had limped to watch the little action, and stood closing his gla.s.s. "Let them come again if they like; but they had the worst of it this time. Splendidly done, my lads! Excellent!"

The Boers rode right away, then turned and rode back as if about to renew the attack; but suddenly they drew rein, and a small body came on at a canter, one of them waving a handkerchief.

"Yes," said the Colonel sternly. "Hold your fire, my lads; they want to pick up their wounded."

This was soon proved to be the case, and we looked on, thinking how much better their wounded fared than did ours.

"Yes," said Denham when I said something of the kind to him; "but I hope they are behaving decently to our poor lads, wounded and prisoners. Let's give them credit for a little humanity."

The Colonel waited till the enemy had retired with their injured men, leaving a couple of dead horses on the plain. Already I could see that the carrion-birds had caught sight of the dead, and were winging their way to an antic.i.p.ated feast; but they were disappointed, for the order had been given, and the horses were being led out again to graze, while four men, with strong raw-hide plaited reins attached to their saddles, rode out quickly to play the part of butchers to the beleaguered force, and shortly after came slowly back drawing a fresh supply of meat for the garrison. Then the vultures descended to clear away everything left.

"It makes one shudder," said Denham to me as we sat perched upon a broken portion of the wall, resting after the previous day's exertion, and nursing our rifles.

"Why?" I said, though I felt that I knew what he was about to say.

"Makes one think how it would be if one lay somewhere out on the veldt, dead and forgotten after a fight."

"Bah! Don't talk about it," I cried.

"Can't help it," he replied. "It makes me want to practise my shooting upon those loathsome crows."