“Officers hear them coming. Prepare for cavalry. Here they come. They’ve rallied, and— No, no. Hark! Hark! Hurrah! No, no; don’t cheer, my lads. They’re racing for their lives, and there’s a line of cavalry after them.”
“Hurrah, Val!” shouted Denham wildly. “Our Light Horse out and at ’em at last!”
“Oh,” I groaned, “and we not with them now!”
“But they’re sweeping after them in full charge, and sabring right and left. Look—look! I can see it all. No, no,” he groaned; “it’s as dark as pitch.—But they’re scattering them, Sergeant?”
“Like chaff, sir, and— Hark at that!”
Crack! crack! Two volleys rang out.
“I hope that has not gone through to friends,” growled the Sergeant. “Ah, all right, gentlemen; there goes the ‘Cease firing.’ They know your Light Horse have been let loose. The Boers won’t stand after this, so we may sing ‘God save the Queen!’ ‘Rule Britannia!’ and the rest of it. This fight’s won, boys. Silence in the ranks!”
He was just in time to stop a cheer, after which we listened to the sounds of the engagement or pursuit, now growing more distant, and I asked a question or two of my father, who now returned to my side.
“Your aunt, my boy? She is safe in Pietermaritzburg. The farmhouse was burned to the ground, all the sheep and cattle commandeered, and your brother and I forced into the Boer ranks.”
I could ask no more questions for a few moments; but Denham was not restrained by his feelings, and I heard him ask the Sergeant: