“Near?”
“Yes; can’t you hear the firing?”
“No,” said West, after a few moments’ pause. “Yes, now I do,” he cried eagerly, for all at once there was a dull concussion as if a blow had been delivered in the air.
“A heavy gun,” cried West excitedly.
“Hist!”
“I forgot,” said West softly. “That must be one of the siege guns,” he continued.
“Yes,” said Ingleborough, “and it must be near daybreak, with the bombarding beginning. Be careful; perhaps we are nearer the enemy than we thought.”
At the end of a couple of minutes there was the dull concussion of another heavy gun, and this was continued at intervals of ten or fifteen minutes during the next hour, while the adventurers advanced cautiously at a walk, keeping a sharp look-out through the transparent darkness for a patch of rocks or woodland which might serve for their next halt. But day had quite dawned before a suitable place of refuge presented itself, in the shape of one of the low kopjes.
“Dismount!” whispered Ingleborough sharply, and they spent the next ten minutes carefully scanning the district round in full expectation of seeing some sign of the enemy.
But nothing worse was in view than two or three of the scattered farms of the open veldt, and in the distance a dark indistinct patch which appeared to be a herd of grazing cattle, but so distant that neither could be sure.