“Take care?” growled Dickenson. “Who’s to take care in the dark? Here, tell the brute in Dutch that if he doesn’t give up I’ll send a bullet through his head. He doesn’t seem to understand plain English.”
“Yes, he does, for he spoke in English just now.”
This was too true, for just then the prisoner suddenly yelled out, “Dirck! Dirck! Help! The cursed rooineks have got me down.”
“Oho! Then there are more than one of you, my beauty!” cried Dickenson. “Now then, this is a gag; hold still or I’ll pull the trigger.”
There was a clinking sound caused by the rattling of the desperate prisoner’s teeth against the barrel of the pistol which Dickenson thrust into his mouth just as he was about to speak. But he wrenched his head round and began to struggle again so desperately that Lennox’s temper got the upper hand and he began to grow merciless to a degree that tempted him to bid his comrade fire.
“Look here,” roared Dickenson at the same moment, “I’ve had enough of this, my fine fellow. Surrender, or I’ll fire without mercy.”
“Ha!” ejaculated Lennox in a sigh of relief, for those six shots had not been fired in vain. The prisoner had unconsciously summoned assistance to complete his capture, and Lennox’s sigh had been produced by the sight of a flash of light and the sound of hurrying feet, the two sergeants with their lanterns reaching the spot first, closely followed by the officers and men, who gazed down in wonder at the human knot composed of the wondrously tied up three lying at the edge of the precipice.
“Come on,” shouted Dickenson. “We’ve caught the ghost. Don’t let him go.”
“Here, hold these, some one,” cried Sergeant James, and as soon as he had got rid of his lantern he made fast, as a sailor would say, to the prisoner and held on; while, to use his words, his mate pulled out the prisoner’s stings, for he had three—two revolvers (one of course discharged) and a keen-bladed sheath-knife, something like an American bowie.
Five minutes later the light of the held-up lanterns fell upon a fierce-looking, much bruised and battered, black-bearded Boer, lying upon the rocky shelf, tied hand and foot, his face so smeared and disfigured by blood that it acted like a mask.