Mine was a strange awakening to what appeared like a confused dream. There was a terrible pain in my head, and a sensation as of something warm and wet trickling down the side of my face, accompanied by a peculiar smarting which made me involuntarily raise my hand and quickly draw it away again, for I had only increased the pain. Then I lay quite still, trying to puzzle out what was the matter.
At first I could only realise the fact that the darkness was intense. After a time the idea occurred that I must have been out with my troop attacking the Boers, and that a bullet had struck me diagonally on the forehead and glanced off after making the cut, which kept bleeding; but I was so stunned that a kind of veil seemed to be raised between the present and the past.
“I shall think all about it soon,” I mused. “It’s of no use to worry after a fall.”
Then I wondered about Sandho, and how the poor beast had fared, a pang of mental agony shooting through me as I listened.
I could not hear a sound.
“He’s killed,” was my next thought; “for if he had been alive he would have stopped directly I fell from his back, and waited for me to remount.”
I began to feel about with my hands; but instead of touching soft earth or bush I felt rough stones, wet and slimy as if coated with fine moss, and it had lately been raining. A faint musical drip, as of falling water, strengthened this notion; but I did not try to follow it out, for my head throbbed severely. So I lay still trying to rest, and gazing upward expecting to see the stars. All above, however, was black with a solid intensity that was awe-inspiring. I could see nothing; but I could feel, and became aware of another fact: I was lying among rocks in a most uncomfortable and painful position, with my head and shoulders in a niche between two pieces of stone, and my feet high above me.
“At the foot of some kopje,” I remember fancying. Then my mind grew clearer—so much clearer that I felt for my handkerchief, got it out of my breast, doubled it, and bound it round my forehead to stop the bleeding. This took me some time; but the movement, painful though it was, seemed to give me more power of thinking, and I began to do more. After an effort, I managed to get my back and shoulders out of the crevice in the rocks where they were wedged. Then my legs slipped down of their own weight, and I felt myself gliding down a sharp incline. I spread out my hands to stop myself, and succeeded, bringing up against some loose stones.
“Sandho’s somewhere at the bottom of this slope,” I thought, and I called him by name; but I was horrified to hear my words go reverberating from me with strange, whispering echoes which died slowly away.
“How strange!” I muttered, as the intense darkness made my feeling of confusion return. “Where am I? What place is this?”