The Kopje Garrison Part 18

"Follow 'em up, sir?" said the sergeant. "It would be easy enough if it keeps like this."

"Yes," said Lennox. "We should know then if it was the Boers."

The man stepped forward with the door of the lantern opened and the light held close to the ground, making the bright yellow grains stand out clearly enough as he went on, though at the end of a minute instead of being in little cl.u.s.ters they diminished to one here and another there, all, however, running in one direction for some fifty yards; and then the sergeant stopped.

"Seems rum, sir," he said.

"You mean that the Boers would not have been going in this direction?"

"That's so, sir. I'm beginning to think that it couldn't have been them."

"I'm glad of it," said Lennox, "for I want to feel that we can trust them. Who could it have been, then?"

"Some of the friendly natives, sir, I hope," replied the sergeant.

"But they wouldn't have come this way, sergeant. It looks more as if some of our own people had been at the corn."

"That's just what I was thinking, sir," replied the sergeant, "only I didn't want to say it."

"But that's impossible, sergeant. A man might have slit up the sacks out of spite, or from sheer mischief, but he wouldn't have carried off any."

"No, sir. He wouldn't, would he? Well, all I can say is that it's rather queer."

"Well, go on," said Lennox; and the sergeant went on, tracing the grain right out to the back of the corrugated iron huts that formed one side of the square, and then past the angle and along the next side, now losing the traces, but soon picking them up again, the hard, dry earth completely refusing to give any trace of the bearer's feet.

Then the next angle of the square was reached, turned, and the sergeant still pa.s.sed on with the light.

"Gets thicker here," he whispered, and directly after he stopped and pointed down at two or three handfuls of the bright grain.

"Seem to have set down a basket here, sir," he said softly. "Shall I go on?"

"Go on? Yes, and trace the robbery home. The scoundrel who has tampered with the stores deserves the severest punishment."

The sergeant proceeded, but more slowly now, for he had only a grain here and a grain there to act as his guide; but these still pointed out the direction taken by the marauders, till the trackers came suddenly upon a good-sized patch.

"Tell you what, sir," whispered the sergeant; "there's only one chap in it, and he's got such a swag he's obliged to keep stopping to rest."

"Yes, that seems to be the case, sergeant," said Lennox, looking carefully about. "Let's see; we must be near the colonel's quarters," he whispered.

"That's right, sir. About twenty yards over yonder; and the fellows on sentry ought to have seen the light and challenged us by now."

"No," said Lennox; "the houses completely shut us off. Go on."

The light was held low down again and swung here and there in the direction that the marauder ought to have taken; but there was not a grain to be seen to indicate the track, and the sergeant had to hark back again and again without being able to find it.

"Rum thing, sir," he whispered. "He must have stopped here and found that his basket was leaking, and patched it up, for I can't see another grain anywhere."

"Neither can I, sergeant; but try again. Take a longer circle."

"Right, sir; but it does seem queer that he should have stopped to make all fast just behind the colonel's quarters."

"It seems to indicate that it was the work of some stranger; otherwise he would not have halted here."

"P'r'aps so, sir; but if he was a stranger how did he know where the corn store was?"

"Can't say, sergeant. Try away."

"Right, sir," said the man, proceeding slowly step by step, with the open lantern very close to the ground, and making a regular circle, in the hope of cutting the way at last by which the supposed thief had gone off after his last rest.

But minute succeeded minute without success, and Lennox was about to urge his companion onward in another direction, when the sergeant uttered a sharp e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n as if of alarm, jerking up the lantern as he started back, and in the same movement blew out the light and shut the lantern door with a loud snap.

Lennox, who was a couple of yards behind, sprang forward, unfastening the cover of his pistol-holster and catching his companion by the arm, while all around now was intensely dark.

"Enemy coming?" he whispered.

"Dunno yet, sir," panted the sergeant, whose voice sounded broken and strange. "Something awfully wrong, sir."

"Speak out, man! What do you mean?" whispered Lennox, whose heart now began to beat heavily.

"I've come upon something down here, sir."

"Ah! The thief-asleep?"

"No, sir," said the sergeant, and his fingers were heard fumbling with the fastening of the lantern.

"What are you doing, man? Why don't you speak?"

"Making sure the light's quite out, sir. Can't speak for a moment-feel choking."

"Then you hear the enemy approaching?"

"No, sir.-Ha! It's quite out! Now, sir, just you go down on one knee and feel."

"I don't understand you, sergeant," whispered Lennox; but all the same he bent down on one knee and felt about with his right hand, fully expecting to touch a heap of the stolen grain.

"No corn," he said at the end of a few seconds; "but what's this-sand?"

"Take a pinch up, and taste it, sir. I hope it is."

"Taste it?" said Lennox half-angrily.

"Yes, sir," said the sergeant out of the darkness, and the faint rustle he made and then a peculiar sound from his lips indicated that he was setting the example.

The young officer hesitated no longer, but gathering up a pinch of the dry sand from the ground, he just held it to the tip of his tongue.

"Why, sergeant," he whispered excitedly, "it's powder!"

"That's right, sir," replied the man. "Gunpowder-a train; a heavy train running right and left."