“And I’m as irritable as Roby was this morning. Never mind. Can you make out the mounted men now?”
“No,” said Dickenson after a pause. “Can you?”
“No. They’re gone behind that patch of forest. There,” he continued, closing his glass, “let’s get up to the top and sit in the men’s shelter; there’ll be a bit of air up there.”
He proved to be right, for a pleasant breeze, comparatively cool, was blowing on the other side of the mountain and tempering the glare of the sunshine, while they found that there was a bit of shade behind a turret-like projection standing out of the granite, looking as if it had been built up by human hands.
There they sat and watched for hours, scanning the veldt, which literally quivered in the heat; but they looked in vain for any movement on the part of the enemy, who had been disturbed by the scouts, and at last made up their minds to go down—truth to tell, moved by the same reason, the pangs of hunger asserting themselves in a way almost too painful to be borne.
“Let’s go,” said Dickenson; “they’ve got right away in safety. I believe the Boers are all asleep this hot day, and in the right of it: plenty to eat and nothing to do.”
“Yes, let’s go. I’m longing for a long cool drink down below there. Pst! What’s that?”
“One of the fellows round there by the gun,” said Dickenson.
“No,” whispered Lennox decidedly; “it was close at hand. Did you hear it?”
“Yes. Sounded like the rock splitting in this fiery sunshine.”