"Now, men," cried the major, "I want no volunteers; there is no time for that. Sergeant Oliphant, pick twenty men quickly. The rest will remain here."
"All right, sir," replied the sergeant, a quiet-looking man of thirty; and in a few seconds the non-commissioned officer, much in the same way as schoolboys pick a team of cricketers, selected twenty New Zealanders, who, headed by Major Salkeld and the sergeant, moved forward at a gallop towards the mouth of the donga overlooking Langeman's Nek.
"No; stay where you are," said the officer in answer to Jack Lovat's appeal. Major Salkeld's command to our hero was so peremptory that Jack was obliged to obey.
"Get your horses into shelter," were the major's last words to a corporal. "Possibly we may have to retire to this spot."
At breakneck speed Major Salkeld and his men hurried to the mouth of the donga. A volley of bullets, which luckily emptied no saddles, was the welcome they received.
On each side of the donga stretched low ranges of kopjes, diminutive in size, but offering good shelter from fire which might be directed from the donga.
The major at once dismounted his men, and four troopers led back the horses to a distance of some two hundred paces, on the instructions of the officer.
The remaining troopers fell prone on the ground, after which they crawled forward, sheltering themselves behind big stones and mimosa scrub.
"We cannot afford to lose a cartridge, men," cried the major. "Every bullet must find its mark, or we are done for."
"All right, sir," muttered more than one man; "we'll see to that;" and with strained vision they glanced along the kopjes, from which little spurts of flame occasionally issued—heralds of the coming storm.