“Yes,” I said. But we waited anxiously for quite an hour before the man we had sent came back.
“Can’t find the black, sir,” he said.
“Did you go to the horses?”
“Yes, sir, and everywhere else.”
“You didn’t go to the butcher’s?” I asked.
“Yes, I did; but he hadn’t been there.”
“Perhaps he’s gone out with the bullock drove.”
“No,” said the man; “the oxen are being kept in this morning because the Boers have come a hundred yards nearer during the night. They’re well in opposite the gateway, and the Colonel’s having our works there strengthened.”
“The Sergeant didn’t say a word about that,” Denham said to me.
I shook my head, and turned to the messenger.