“Friend!” shouted Jack.
“Where from? Answer quickly, or I fire!”
“From Mafeking, with despatches,” Jack replied unsuspectingly.
“Advance, friend, and give the countersign!” the sentry now called out; and as soon as Jack and Riley had approached within ten yards he shouted, “Halt! Lay down your arms at once—you are prisoners!”
“Trapped, by Jove!” shouted Jack, snatching at his rifle; but before he could lift it a dozen other dark figures rose beside the sentry and covered him with their weapons. To resist would have been madness, and a minute later Jack and his friend were disarmed and being taken back towards the Boer camp at Magersfontein, Riley still mounted on his pony.
“What hard luck!” cried the latter bitterly. “We were within a couple of miles of our friends, and after all the trouble we had taken we deserved to get in safely.”
“Yes, it was rough luck,” Jack agreed cheerfully. “But it is the fortune of war, and there is no use worrying about it. I should not have minded so much if I had had a fight for it. To be taken without firing a shot is humiliating. But now we have nothing to do but to escape. I’ve managed that once before, and I’ll do it again if the chance comes.”
“Then I hope you’ll take me with you,” said Riley eagerly. “I’ve no special wish to spend my days a prisoner in Pretoria.”
Soon after sunrise that morning the two prisoners were brought into the enemy’s camp, and Riley was at once taken to the hospital and placed in charge of a Scotch surgeon who had been commandeered by the Boers. Jack was taken across to a large bell-tent, standing apart from the others in an open space, and ushered into it. It was most elaborately furnished. The floor was carpeted, and there was a handsome brass bedstead and a writing-table, seated behind which was a short, shabby, and vindictive-looking man, with iron-grey beard and whiskers, unkempt and undipped, and almost concealing a powerful-looking mouth, and eyes which flashed fiercely at the stranger Englishman. It was General Cronje, a man who had taken a prominent part in the first Boer war, and who had earned for himself the contempt of all Englishmen for his treacherous behaviour.
“Who are you?” he demanded, looking searchingly at Jack’s face.