“Yes, sir,” replied the sergeant in a hoarse whisper, “and don’t you grasp it? One way it goes off towards the veldt—”
“And the other way towards the colonel’s quarters,” whispered Lennox. “Here, sergeant, there must be some desperate plot—a mine, perhaps, close up to that hut. Quick! Follow me.”
The sergeant did not need the order, for he was already moving in the direction of the cluster of huts, but going upon his hands and knees, leaving the lantern behind and feeling his way, guiding himself by his fingers so as to keep in touch with the coarse, sand-like powder, which went on in an easily followed line towards the back of the colonel’s hut.
It seemed long, but it was only a matter of a few seconds before they were both close up, feeling in the darkness for some trace of that which imagination had already supplied; and there it was in the darkness.
“Here’s a bag, sergeant,” whispered Lennox.
“A bag, sir? Here’s five or six, and one emptied out, and—Run, sir, for your life! Look at that!”
For there was a flash of light from somewhere behind them, and as, with a bag of powder which he had caught up in his hand, Lennox turned round, he could see what appeared to be a fiery serpent speeding at a rapid rate towards where, half-paralysed, he stood.
