“That’s right enough,” I said.
“Don’t you get blowing hot and cold,” cried Denham, with impatience. “Then some one else sided with the Colonel. It was the doctor, I think. He said the General must know when, where, and how we were situated, and that sooner or later he would attack the Boers, rout them, and set us at liberty.”
“That sounds wise,” I hazarded.
“No, it doesn’t,” said my companion; “because we shouldn’t want setting at liberty then. Do you suppose that if we heard the General’s guns, and found that he was attacking the enemy, we should sit still here and look on?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be right,” I replied.
“Right? Of course not. As soon as the attack was made we should file out and begin to hover on the enemy’s flank or rear, or somewhere else, waiting our time, and then go at them like a wedge and scatter them. Oh, how I do long to begin!”
“It seems to me,” I said thoughtfully, “that the General ought to have sent some one to find us and bring us a despatch ordering the Colonel what to do.”
“I dare say he has—half-a-dozen by now—and the Boers have captured them; but it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” I said wonderingly.
“No; because, depend upon it, he’d have ordered us to sit fast till he came.”