Denham placed his lips close to my ear and whispered, “I was afraid the sentry would see you. Here, give me your knife.”
I answered by taking it out and placing it in his hands, listening, and wondering then what he was about to do, for he rose to his feet, and I heard a peculiar sound as of cutting something and Denham breathing hard.
He was down by me when the noise ceased, and once more his lips were at my ear.
“Get up and join hands,” he whispered. “There’s a light straight ahead, and another about a quarter of a mile to the right. We’ll make for this last one. Mind, not a sound.”
The order was not needed. We rose silently. There, as he had stated, right in front and away to the right, were two of the tiniest sparks of light; they were almost invisible, the nearest being fully a thousand yards off.
Then, hand in hand and step by step, we went on through the pitchy darkness straight for the light on our right. We moved very cautiously, for our first fear was that we might be heard from the walls; and, setting aside the extreme doubtfulness of receiving a bullet in the back from a friend, there was the danger of one shot bringing many, as the sentries carried on the alarm, with the result that every Boer in front would be on the qui vive and our venture rendered impossible. But all was perfectly still, while the darkness overhead seemed to press down upon us.
In about ten minutes Denham whispered, “Don’t take any notice.”
When he had spoken there was a faint, rustling sound, and I knew he had thrown something from him, to fall with a dull sound upon the ground.
“Bother!” he whispered. “I didn’t think it would make such a row.”
“What was it?” I asked.