“No. Wait till they show,” corrected Sketchley. “No good lessening the wholesome scare they’ve got of us by blazing at stones.”
Even as he spoke the savages became alive to this new turn of events, and reckoning they would soon be caught between two fires, were, with warning cries to each other, beginning to glide away. But between the two fires a good few were consumed before they managed to; for the shots from above were now coolly and carefully timed, and those from below, especially where Harley Greenoak got his foresight on to a brown red body, told with terror-striking effect. In a very few minutes there was not a Kafir left on the hillside.
“Hi! Here! Hullo, Greenoak, here we are,” sung out Dick Selmes. “You’re just in time, but we’ve bagged the two chiefs. Come along.”
They started back to camp without delay. Just before reaching it, one of the four troopers, who was given to pessimism, remarked—
“Old Chambers’ll get all the kudos for to-day’s job. We shan’t.”
It may be said that in the event the speaker was wrong. The Commandant was far too wise and too just a man to allow a meritorious service to go unrecognised. In the event, too, it transpired that these four had performed a very meritorious service indeed, and all of them, except one man who left the Force, his time having expired, got promotion as soon as practicable.