All was perfectly still; and though we had gone on fully a hundred yards, there was nothing to be heard or seen of the enemy in front.
Suddenly Denham leaned towards me, and gripped my shoulder for a moment before loosening his grasp and holding his right hand before me.
“Shake,” he said in a low whisper.
Our hands pressed one another for a brief moment or two, and then we both sat upright, listening.
All was yet silent. Then, far away, but so loudly that
the air seemed to throb, came the deep, thunderous, barking roar of a lion, followed from out of the darkness ahead by the rush and plunge of a startled horse.
“Quiet, you cowardly brute, or I’ll pull your head off!” came loudly in Dutch, as a horse somewhere to our left uttered a loud, challenging neigh. This was answered directly by Denham’s charger; and in an instant a horse in front followed the first horse’s example.
I heard a faint rustle as every man threw his right arm over the reins to seize the hilt of his sabre, and the feeling of wild excitement began to rush through me again as I gripped my own and waited for the order to draw.
Now the darkness was cut by a bright flash of light right in front; there was the sharp crack of a rifle, and right and left flash, crack, flash, crack, ran along a line.