"I see he is older than you. I suppose he was taking some message to Graspan?"
"He did not tell me," Yorke answered truthfully, "and it was not my business to ask him; but of course he must have had some orders. More troops are coming along—three or four hundred, I believe."
"Then, there is no time to lose. Hurry on, men! I will see if the officer has any despatches on him."
He rejoined the party just as they reached the ponies.
"Not a scrap of paper of any sort," he said. "He can only have had verbal orders. It won't do for us to carry out the business we came here for, for they might be upon us before we had time to pull up half a dozen rails, and were we to try it they might catch us before we had time to get away. At any rate, we have done a good morning's work—ten men and an officer; we have got a prisoner, two pairs of field-glasses, two revolvers, and ten carbines."
Three hours' riding took the party to Jacobsdal. Yorke's leg had hurt a good deal on starting, but the pain had to a great extent gone off before reaching the town, and now he found he could walk. He had managed, as he rode, to tear up the despatches he had received, and had, one by one, chewed up the pieces and swallowed them. They could, even if discovered, have done no harm now; but had they been found at first, the Boers would no doubt have torn up the line, and might have caused an accident that would have been fatal to many of the wounded. Had he been asked the question, he must have produced them; but regarding him only as a young subaltern, they had not thought for a moment that, going with a senior officer, he would be trusted with despatches. He was, however, glad when he got rid of the last fragment, and still more so when, on being placed in the guard-room, he was searched from head to foot. He was supplied with food and treated with some consideration by the Boers, who were in high spirits at the three great successes they had gained.
"Why don't your soldiers give it up?" one of them asked him. "They must see by this time that they are no good against us. We would allow them to go down to the coast and embark on board ship without molesting them."
"There is an old saying with us," Yorke replied, "that a British soldier never knows when he is beaten; and though certainly we have been unfortunate lately, I can assure you that the idea that we are beaten for good has not occurred to any of us. We are angry at our defeats, but in no way disheartened. We consider that the war has only just begun yet, and have no doubt that twice as many men as are in South Africa now, will be sent out as soon as the ships can be got ready for them."
"Poor fellows!" the Boer said. "We hear that they have to be made drunk to get them on board ship, and those that won't drink have to be ironed."
"I am afraid," Yorke said, "that you hear a great many lies, and you may be quite sure that that is one of them. I can tell you the last news we had was that the Militia regiments, which are only raised for home service, and some even of the Volunteers, have sent in applications asking to be allowed to come out on service."