“‘I’ll carry you, little chap,’ says I, and I picked him up, but he was heavy for his size, and the bush was thick, and more than that, he kicked.
“So I sot him down, and I yeard a Kaffir calling out to his friends to know what the noise was. I motioned to him to come, but he sot there, with his face white, and shook his head; then he altered his mind. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘I’ll foller—go quick!’ So I sot off up the ridge through the wood, slipping from tree to tree, thinking he were coming, when all of a sudden outer the wood, ringing out clear and loud, a bugle sounded the alarm. I looked round and the boy were not there. I ran back, and saw him with the bugle to his lips, and his cheeks swelling as he blew another blast. I can hear it now—the call of that little chap, with the muttered cries of the Kaffirs, and the sound of their naked feet running, as they came up.
“‘You little devil,’ I yelled; ‘they’ll kill you. Run!’
“He gave me one look over his shoulder, and he put his life into that last blow. As the last note went swinging away, there came an answering note from the regiment—to form square.
“‘That’ll be Jimmy,’ he said. And the next minnit an assegai struck him on the neck, and he fell into my arms.”
Abe stopped, and looked away.
“What, then?” I said, touching him on the shoulder.
“I don’t know, sonny, what happened, till I laid him down afore the General.”
“You carried him out?”
“I s’pose so—I s’pose so—seeing as we were both there; and my clothes were in rags from the thorns, and my head cut open with a kerrie. Yes, I laid him afore the General.