“None of your threats! Do as you’re told!” snarled the Boer leader angrily. “It will be many a long year before your queen claims a single one of us as a subject; but let me tell you, miss, it will be only a very few minutes before this ugly-looking thing does you a mischief, if you refuse to play ‘God Save the Queen’!”
As he spoke the villain snatched a Mauser pistol from his belt and held it pointed at Eileen’s head.
Jack’s teeth ground together, and, quickly slipping a cartridge into his rifle, he covered the Boer leader, and was on the point of pressing the trigger when Tim, the gallant Zulu boy, his eyes glaring with rage, rushed at the man and struck him from his chair. He was seized at once, and held in front of the villain who had dared to threaten Eileen, who again lifted his Mauser, placed the muzzle against the poor fellow’s head, and held it there a moment, so as to prolong the agony of fear, ere he pressed the trigger and sent Tim to his last account.
That pause proved the latter’s salvation, while to the Boer it meant a sudden death. Jack, who had kept him covered, thrust the end of his rifle through the glass and fired, dropping the villain in his tracks. Then shouting: “Give it to them, boys!” he opened his magazine and poured a hail of shot into the house, taking care to miss Tim and Eileen Russel.
Startled by the shot and alarmed by Jack’s shout, which seemed to show that there were many there besides himself, the Boers started to their feet and rushed through the door. A minute later they were flying away across the veldt, leaving four of their number lying dead upon the floor of the farmhouse.
Jack and Wilfred at once ran round to the door, which stood wide open, and stepped in.
“Don’t be frightened, Eileen,” said the former soothingly. “Those cowards have bolted, and you are safe for a time at least. What has happened to your father?”
“Ah! is that you, Jack Somerton?” the poor girl asked in a dreamy way, as if she were not quite certain that her eyes had told her correctly—“Jack Somerton, the young Englishman who used to come here with our old friend Tom Salter?”
“Yes, it’s Jack all right, Eileen,” he replied. “Now tell me how those villains happened to find you here alone.”