A bent old man, with a cart of vegetables and a horse too decrepit for the war, crept by. Smoke in a place or two went up from the chimneys of the scattered farmhouses. The continent was awake.
Riding yesterday, Mortimer had never known when he might run into a Boer picket, but the farther he went now the danger lessened—in another dozen miles he ought to be somewhere about the beginning of the line the British had made to defend a railway. And after that his ride would lie through country dotted over by the British army.
He pushed on; his horse was fresh and ready again after the night's rest and a couple of good feeds; his own spirits, chiefly owing to his excellent breakfast, began to rise again and push his carelessness from the chief place in his mind; he grew aflame for a chance to prove his courage, and respect himself once more. Before he left the camp it had been held that a big engagement was certain in a very few days; his mind leapt forward to it now with a keenly sharpened appetite, and he beheld himself making famous his country's name by impossible feats of strength.
Crack! To the left of him a firearm went off; the bullet passed clear over his head, and rattled on some loose stones as it fell.
He glanced round less in fear than astonishment. At the spot the veldt was singularly clear, and the nearest kopje was far beyond rifle-range. Whir! A second shot struck his helmet, a third grazed his shoulder! His horse plunged and reared; he spun it round and faced a clump of karoo bushes twenty yards to his left, the only place from which the shots could have come, and even these seemed absurd, for no shrub was more than two or three feet high. He raised his revolver; his finger was at the trigger. Then he saw three small faces over the edge of one of the bushes—three that he knew; they were the stolid, secret-looking little boys who had lighted him to the stable last night.
HIS HORSE PLUNGED AND REARED.
'The little sweeps!' he muttered, but moved his finger from the trigger, even though he kept the revolver cocked at them.
'Do you want me to blow the brains of all three of you out?' he called. 'Lay down those guns this minute, or I will.' He was close up to them, and a sharp glance among the sparse bushes showed him that beyond these small youths he had no other attackers. At the sight of British might in the concrete form of a mounted soldier standing right over them, two of the lads instantly laid down their ponderous old style weapons. The third essayed another shot, but his rifle kicked and the bullet went wild.
'You young beggar!' said Stevenson; 'put it down this instant.'