“Can you hold on till I get down to you?”
“I—I think so, old fellow,” he said faintly. “I’m on a sort of shelf. But don’t try—you can’t do it—you’ll send the loose stones down upon me. That last one grazed my head.”
“But I must,” I said harshly, and I remember fancying that my voice sounded savage and brutal. “I can’t leave you like this.”
“Climb up out of this horrible hole yourself, old fellow, and leave me.”
“I won’t,” I shouted, so that my voice went echoing away; but as I looked up past the light it seemed to me that I could not, even if willing.
“You must,” said Denham more firmly. “Climb up and call for help.”
At that moment, sounding faint and distant, there was the report of a rifle; then another, and another, followed by four or five in a volley.
“The Boers are attacking,” I cried. My heart sank as something seemed to say to me, “Well, if they are, what does it matter to you?”
The firing went on, and just then the wick of the lamp, of which a good deal must have been loosened by the fall, began to blaze up famously. I looked around to ascertain if I could get down to help Denham; but it seemed impossible. I saw, however, that I might lower myself a couple of feet farther, and get my heels in a transverse crack in the rock, where I could check myself and perhaps afford some help to a climber.
“Look here, Denham,” I shouted out as if I had been running, “I can help you if you can climb up here. You must pluck up and try.”