Night drew on; rain and sleet veiled the prospect; the videttes descended the ridge, and joined their comrades round the great bonfire, which was no easy matter to keep up, from the scarcity of wood.
Wrapped in their heavy coats, with hats flapped over their brows, their arms at hand, the red light of their pipes irradiating their bearded and swarthy faces, the rebels listened to the alternate tirades of Lyle and Brennard.
It was these two connoisseurs in human nature who had taken care that there should be plenty of tobacco among the stores of the bivouac. The Boers they knew would make the better listeners for this solace.
It was a scene fit for a painter of the wild and picturesque. Rising abruptly in front was the stony ridge, the outline dimly marked against the murky sky; two or three ragged tents and as many wagons were drawn close to the fire, which, from time to time, emitting its fitful light, shone on none but angry or anxious faces.
Vander Roey paced restlessly up and down between his wife’s wagon and the fire. Madame Vander Roey was the only woman in the bivouac. She sat with the curtains of the wagon drawn aside, listening for the approach of expected horsemen. The wind had died away, and the sleet continued to fall noiselessly. The silence of nature was alone disturbed by Lyle’s voice declaiming, and by an occasional challenge from sentinels. The two little bushboys, Lynx and Frolic, wrapped in skins and coiled up under the wagon, peered with their sharp eyes into the mist.
“Here they come,” said Lynx. Frolic laid his ear to the earth, satisfied himself that horses’ feet were beating the ground at a distance, and announced the fact to his mistress, who called Vander Roey.
He was already by her side.
“Who comes there?”
“Who goes there?” shouted sentinel number one; it was repeated by number two, and in an instant the rebels were on their feet.
“Who comes there?”