"That will occupy their attention on the kopje near this road, Peter. We will keep along close to it as far as we can. It is all open veldt, and as far as I can make out, the foot of the kopjes is at least two or three hundred yards from it, so that walking will be a good deal easier than it was coming here. But mind, if we are surprised, Peter, you are to follow my orders and make a bolt for it at once. As long as the ground is open like this I can use my own eyes, and I wish you now to fall back and walk thirty or forty yards behind me. It is of no use our both being captured. I have given you a copy of the figures that I have put down, and have gone through them over and over again with you, so that you know what each of them means. I have also told you the message Colonel Kekewich sent me, which you are to repeat to the general when you get back to the Modder. When we have got well past the Kopjes you can come up to me again, but until we do so keep well behind, and if I am suddenly pounced upon make straight off. We have agreed that you can follow me and help me if there is a chance of making my escape, but I hardly think that such a chance would occur. However, that I must leave to you. But you must remember that you are not to follow me long, not more than a day or two, for it is all-important that the message should get to the Modder as soon as possible."
"If it is your orders, I must obey them," the Kaffir said, "but I don't like it, baas."
"Never mind that, Peter; we all have to do things we don't like sometimes. Now, drop back."
Yorke had before leaving the lines again muffled his boots, and he walked along fast, feeling confident that he should get through unobserved. He was walking close to the road, and was within four or five hundred yards of the kopjes, when he took to it again, as there were some clumps of bushes in front of him. Suddenly he fell on his face with a crash, his foot having caught against a wire stretched tightly some six inches above the ground. Before he could spring to his feet a dozen men rushed out from the bushes and seized him.
"Run, Peter, run!" he shouted, and then said as the Boers raised him to his feet, "I surrender."
Several of them raised their rifles and faced towards the road by which he had come, thinking that he might be followed by a strong force. After waiting for three or four minutes two of them ran forward cautiously, but returned in five minutes, saying that there was no sign of any one there.
"But this man shouted to someone. Whom did you shout to?" he asked Yorke roughly.
Yorke shook his head. He thought it best to profess ignorance of Dutch. The man repeated the question in English.
"It was a Kaffir," Yorke answered. "He was coming to show me the way across the country when we had passed through your lines."
"You are a spy, then," the man said fiercely.