“Look out!” said West, in warning tones.
“What is it?”
“They’re pulling up and dismounting,” replied West. “Here come the bullets again.”
For as he spoke the buzzing, whizzing notes of danger overhead, which had for some minutes ceased, began to utter their warnings again, but in a very irregular way, which brought forth the remark from Ingleborough that their enemies’ hands were unsteady from their sharp ride.
“The more need then for us to get into a sheltered place where we can rest a few minutes before they can come up,” said West. “Let’s have another sharp gallop and get well among the rocks: it will be riding out of range and getting more in advance before they mount again.”
“Right, general!” cried Ingleborough banteringly; and once more they tore over the veldt, pursued only by the bullets, for the following Boers had dismounted to a man.
“Keep a little wider,” said West, laughing outright at his companion’s word “general.”
“Don’t let’s give them a chance by riding so close together!”
“Right! Fine manoeuvre!” replied Ingleborough; and they went on towards the kopje at full speed, both feeling a wild kind of exhilaration as the wind rushed by their cheeks, and the plucky little horses stretched out more and more as if enjoying the race as much as their riders.
Strange terms “exhilaration” and “enjoying,” but none the less true. For there was no feeling of dread, even though the bullets kept on whizzing by them to right, to left, in front, far behind; now high overhead, and more often striking up the dust and ricochetting into space, to fall neither knew where. Every leaden messenger, it it reached its mark, meant a wound; many would have resulted in death had they struck the fugitives. But the excitement made the rush one wild gratification, combined with a kind of certainty that they would escape scot-free; and they laughed aloud, shouting words of encouragement to their ponies and cries of defiance and derision at the unsuccessful riflemen.