‘Nothing much to tell,’ said that young man, who, like all men of true heroic mould, hated talking about his deeds of valour. ‘Only a quick thing, soon over. Casualties few. Enemy routed with loss.’
‘What a shabby account of a real affair of outposts. Here’s Jean dying to hear about it. You were wounded, you know, or was it Lord Newstead? We can’t let you off. Support me, Jean, love! Look at her, Mr. Southwater.’
The girl, who had been gazing at Southwater with a world of interest, admiration, and pained sympathy in her beautiful eyes, dropped them at this appeal, and could only murmur pleadingly, ‘Please do.’
The young fellow was but a man. Thus adjured he would have been more than mortal if he had resisted such an appeal.
‘Now, Mrs. Lilburne, this is hardly fair. But I’m not a public character, and I know I can rely on you not to give me away. So here goes, while we walk the horses up the hill:—
‘The night was hot and steamy. I was sitting in my tent writing home, and Newstead was talking to Minniekins—really half the credit belongs [227] ]to her, for she gave us warning, you know. We were enjoying the quiet loaf, when suddenly she began to growl—not a bark, but a low, suspicious, disapproving note, hinting at undesirables. It was too dark to see more than a few yards; but Minniekins rarely made a false point.
‘We had finished a big clean up, and were mostly tired—perhaps a trifle sleepy. I stopped writing and watched. Minniekins kept on growling. On a sudden she burst into a fierce bark. Then I heard an oath, and a sharp yell of pain, after which she went on barking worse than ever. Then the scoundrels made their rush—it was a “put-up thing,” I mean planned beforehand—and the scrimmage began.
‘A fellow jammed a revolver into my face, which I instinctively knocked up, knocking him down with a left-hander at the same time.
‘His “gun,” as Americans call it, fell wide of him, and I grabbed it before he got on his legs again. I heard shots while this little bit of business was going on, and Mr. Banneret got a scratch—a close shave all the same. My man was soon made safe, and I was just in time to see Newstead laid out with a bullet through his left shoulder, not so far from the heart. A police detachment came in on the top of the shindy; but the battle was over. A tall man lay dead not far from the gold-room—poor Dick Andrews was down, and played out; but he had saved Banneret’s life by dropping “Long Jack” as the tall scoundrel—a noted criminal from another colony—was taking a second shot.
[228]
]‘Old Jack, who was just going to the township, and, being in full fig, had of course got his six-shooter, had fired right and left with good effect, so that when the Inspector lined up with the flower of the police force, fully armed, there was nothing to do but to carry off the wounded and bury the casualties. That was our Waterloo—short, sharp, and decisive; if it hadn’t been for Minniekins, we should have been taken, wholly unprepared—like the War Office in the Boer War. I think she ought to be decorated for it.’