“Ready?”
“And waiting!”
“Then mount!”
Their ponies were waiting patiently by their sides, and the next minute they had sprung into the saddles and rode off in the direction taken by the train.
West asked no questions, for he was full of confidence in his long-tried companion, and with the ponies well-refreshed and eager from their rest, they rode steadily on, keeping a sharp look-out for danger, but meeting with no adventure for quite a couple of hours, by which time both felt that they must be getting near to the end of their journey.
But they had nothing to guide them, for they were off the track, and even had they been on, it would have been impossible to follow it in the strange eerie light shed by the quarter-moon. Once they had evidence that they were in all probability going right, for a horrible odour suddenly assailed their nostrils, making them press their ponies’ sides and go past something indistinct at a gallop, holding their breath till they were well beyond what was in all probability the body of some wretched horse or ox that had died of overwork and exhaustion.
“We must keep on now!” whispered Ingleborough. “I feel that we are going right.”
“But the Boer laagers and outposts!” whispered back West.
“Somewhere ahead, lad; but we must leave something to chance. We are, say, within half-a-dozen miles of Mafeking, so I put it; perhaps not more than two or three. Keep a sharp look-out for lights.”
“The enemy’s?”