“Two hundred, man? It’s a thousand.”
“Why, you don’t see it, sir,” cried the sergeant excitedly. “It wasn’t the enemy out yonder sent that bullet home.”
“Not the enemy out there?” cried Dickenson.
“No, sir. It was your dead man who fired that shot.”
“What?”
“Don’t feel so sorry for him, sir, do you, now?”
As the sergeant was asking this question, the soldier who lay off to their left, and who had not discharged his piece for some time, fired simultaneously with a shot which came from the direction where the wounded Boer lay.
“Ah!” cried the sergeant excitedly. “Can you see him from there?”
“No,” growled the man; “but I saw something move, and let go on the chance of hitting him, but only cut up the sand.”
“Don’t take your eye from the spot, my lad,” cried Dickenson sharply. “Never mind a fresh cartridge. Trust to your magazine.”