Then came another trouble: the darkness was greater than ever. It was a cloak, certainly, for our proceedings; but there was not a star visible to guide us in our course towards the old stronghold.
“Think we’re going right?” I asked again and again.
“Um? Joeboy think so,” he always replied. “Wait till light come. Soon know then.”
Words of wisdom these, of course; but though we kept on in what we believed a straight line for our goal, the line we were taking might be right away from the camp, or we might be proceeding in a curve which would bring us within easy reach of the enemy—perhaps as near as when we started. Truly we were in the dark; and as the air grew colder towards daybreak, everything looked, if possible, blacker still.
“Morrow morning,” said Joeboy, suddenly coming back to where I trudged alongside one of the wagons, whose drivers appeared to be all asleep.
I looked in the direction he indicated, and there was a faint dawn low down on the horizon.
“Then we’re going wrong, Joeboy,” I said; “that’s the east.”
“Um!” he said. “Too much that way. Going right now.”
I looked back in the direction of the Boer camp, but nothing was visible there. It seemed as if the darkness lay like a cloud upon the earth; but, upon turning again to look in the way the heads of the oxen were pointed, I could see what looked like a hillock in the distance. Fixing my eyes upon it, I could gradually see it more distinctly, and in a few minutes’ time made out that what had seemed like one hillock was really two—the one natural, the other artificial: in other words, the pile of ironstone and granite in one case, the built-up stronghold in the other.
“Joeboy,” I said, beckoning him to one side after a furtive glance at the black foreloper, “we’re a long way off, and the Boers will miss the wagons and see us soon.”