For the two men cheered on seeing the pony limp for a few yards and then fall, just beyond where his master was lying stretched out on his face.
“Poor brute!” said Dickenson in a low voice.
“He didn’t say it was butchery when that chap was knocking down our mounts at quarter this distance,” said the sergeant to himself. “But, my word, he can shoot! I shouldn’t like to change places with the Boers when he’s behind a rifle.”
Just then the men cheered, for three more of the enemy who had been stalking them were seen to spring into the saddle, lie flat down over their willing mounts, and gallop away as hard as they could to join their comrades.
“Well, we’ve stopped that game for the present, sergeant,” said Dickenson. “Perhaps we may be able to keep them off till night.—But that’s a long way off,” he said to himself, “and we’ve to fight against this scorching heat and the hunger and thirst.”
“Hope so, sir,” said the sergeant, in response to what he had heard; “but—”
He ceased speaking, and pointed in the direction of the patch of scrub forest where they had passed the night.
Dickenson shaded his eyes and uttered an ejaculation. Then after another long glance: “Ten—twenty—thirty,” he said, as he watched two lines of mounted men cantering out from behind the patch right and left. “Why, there must be quite thirty more.”
“I should say forty of ’em, sir.”
“Why, sergeant, they’re moving out to surround us.”