“Nothing,” I replied. “It’s dark; but there’s a curious transparent look about the night, and I think we should see any one directly if he were advancing.”
“How? I don’t see that’s at all likely.”
“If any one passed along it would be like a shadow crossing the grey stones. They look quite grey in the starlight.”
“Well, yes, they do,” he said; “and—I say, what’s that?”
He pointed towards the Boers’ camp-fires, and, startled by his tone, I looked eagerly in the direction pointed out; but there were the piles of grey stones looking dull and shadowy, but no sign to me of anything else.
“Fancy,” I said.
“No. Just as you spoke I saw something dark go across one of the stones. Shall I fire?”
“Certainly not. It would be alarming every one for nothing. We talked about seeing things pass the grey stones, and that made you think you saw some one.”
“Perhaps so,” he said thoughtfully. “Anyhow, there’s nothing here now. I say, that seems to have woke me up.”
“It would,” I said; and then I crouched a little lower, shading my eyes from the starlight and keenly sweeping the chaotic wilderness of rocks again and again, but seeing nothing.