He turned upon his heel and strode heavily away, with his spurs clinking loudly and the guard at the end of his scabbard giving a sharp chink every now and then, as, field-glass in hand, he climbed to the top of the wall to take a look round at the positions of the enemy before the evening closed in.
“Well,” said Denham at last, looking the while as if all the military starch had been taken out of him, “you’ve done it now.”
I could keep back my laughter no longer.
“Somebody has,” I cried merrily.
“Yes,” he said dolefully; “somebody has. Oh, I say, Val, you oughtn’t to have told tales like that.”
“What?” I cried. “How could I help it?”
“Well, I suppose you couldn’t,” said my companion. “But there never was such an unlucky beggar as I am. What did he want to come upon us just at that moment for? Oh dear! oh dear! and I got to face him to-morrow morning! I say, can’t we do something to put it off—something to make him forget it?”
“Impossible,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t know; try and think of a good dodge—a sortie, or doing something to make the Boers come on to-night. If we had a jolly good light he’d forget all about it, and I shouldn’t hear any more about the miserable business. Here, what can we do to make the Boers come on? I might get killed in the set-to, and then I should escape this awful wigging.”
“Who ought to go and see the doctor now?” I said. “Who’s going mad?”