“Yes; quite. The sooner we’re off the better.”
“The ponies are waiting, sir; and I’ve got the password, and know exactly where the outposts are if I can hit them off in the dark, for it’s twice as black as it was last night.”
“Then it will be a bad time for our search.”
“Search, sir?” said the sergeant bluntly. “We’re going to do no searching to-night.”
“What!” cried Dickenson.
“It’s impossible, sir. All we can do is to get as close as we can to the kopje and find out whether the enemy is still there. Then we must wait for daylight. If the place is clear, it will be all easy going; if the Boers are still there we must have a hasty ride round, if we can, before we are discovered.”
“Very well,” said Dickenson slowly as they walked on to the lines where the ponies were tethered, mounted, and went off at a walk, the sergeant and Dickenson side by side and the two men close behind; while the slight, cob-like Bechuana ponies upon which they were mounted seemed to need no guiding, but kept to the track which brought them again upon outposts, where their riders were challenged, gave the word, and then went steadily on at a walk right away across the open veldt.
“Ponies know their way, sir,” said the sergeant after they had ridden about a mile. “I’ll be bound to say, if we let them, they’ll take us right by that patch of scrub where the enemy had his surprise, and then go straight away for the kopje.”
“So much the better, sergeant,” said Dickenson, who spoke unwillingly, his body full of pain as his mind was of thought.
“Will you give the order for us to load?”