“I may as well walk across,” and they went out. On arrival at Jim’s tent, however, that redoubted warrior was not there.
“Probably making a night of it with some of the fellows who have just come,” was Claverton’s remark. “Ah, here’s what I want,” pouncing upon a bit of blue paper which lay ostentatiously upon an old packing-case, and was directed to himself. “Now we’ll go back.”
The night was moonless and rather dark, for a curtain of cloud had drifted across the sky; here and there one or two stars twinkled through its rifts, and the outline of the sombre ridge beyond was scarcely visible. All was quiet in the camp, the voices of the men made a kind of monotonous hum, and now and then a laugh arose from some centre of jollity for the time being.
A light burned in Claverton’s tent as they were about to enter, and, pausing for a moment, the figures of the two men were thrown out into full relief.
Crack!
A bright jet shoots out of the gloom just beneath the shadowy outline of the ridge overlooking the camp, and the sharp report rolls away in dull echo upon the night. Then another flash, and, amid the roar that follows, Claverton and his companion both experience a strange, jarring sensation, for a bullet has passed, with a shrill whiz, between them, narrowly missing the head of either.
“Good shot that, whoever it is,” remarked Naylor, coolly, while his companion, who had quickly extinguished the light, was by his side again. “There’ll be tall cannonading for the next half-hour, and tolerably wild shooting, too.”
And there was. The effect of the double shot upon that camp—which fancied itself so secure—was marvellous. In a moment every man had seized his piece, and was standing eagerly peering into the gloom in the direction of the shot—and not merely that, for many discharged their weapons haphazard—and presently, as Naylor had said, the cannonading waxed alarming. The frontier corps, beyond a few shots fired on the impulse of the moment, had remained cool; they knew the futility of blazing at random into the darkness, and had too much respect for themselves and their reputation to be made the subject of a practical joke played by one or two skulking Kafirs. But the camps of the Fingo and Hottentot levies were like a disturbed ants’ nest; and heeding the voices of their officers no more than the wind, those startled and panic-stricken auxiliaries poured a terrific fire into the darkness, and the air was aflame with the flash of their wild, reckless volleys as they blazed away—round after round—as fast as ever they could reload. It was in vain that their officers strove to restrain them—their voices were lost in the constant bellow of musketry. Now and then they would knock down a refractory nigger or two within reach, but it had no effect upon the others, and confusion reigned supreme.
“Well, Lumley, here’s a lively kettle of fish.”
He addressed, turned, perspiring and despairing in his frantic attempts to restore order.