“Why, what’s the matter with you?” said Dickenson laughingly as he stepped up and looked in. “Think some of your friends were coming to fetch you?”
“You crept up so quietly,” grumbled the Boer, recovering himself, and calling gently to his companions to return.
“Quietly? Of course. You didn’t want us to send a trumpeter before us to say we were coming, did you?”
“H’m! No. What were you doing? Listening to find out whether we were going to run away?”
“Psh! No!” cried Dickenson. “Here, Mr Lennox wants to say something to you.”
“What about?” said the man huskily.
“I have been thinking that, as you are going on a foraging expedition,” said Lennox, “you ought to go at once. It’s a very dark night, and the enemy is completely demoralised by to-day’s fight.”
“Demoralised?” said the Boer.
“Well, scared—beaten—all in disorder.”
“Oh,” said the Boer, nodding his head like an elephant. “But what difference does that make?”