"RUN, SIR, FOR YOUR LIFE!"
"Eh? Yes. All right," cried Lennox, starting up, ready dressed as he
was, to find himself half-blinded by the light of the lantern held close
over him. "Time, sergeant?"
"Well, not quite, sir; but I want you to come and have a look at
something."
"Something wrong?" cried the young officer, taking his sword and belt,
which were handed to him by the non-com, and rapidly buckling up.
"Well, sir, I don't know about wrong; but it don't look right."
"What is it?"
"Stealing corn, I call it, sir; and it's being done in a horrid messy
way, too."
"What! from the stores?"
"Yes, sir," said the man; "but come and look."
"Ready," said Lennox, taking out and examining his revolver, and then
thrusting it back into its holster.
The next minute, after a glance at Dickenson, who was sleeping
peacefully enough, Lennox was following the sergeant, whose dim lantern
shed a curious-looking halo in the black darkness. Then as they passed
a sentry another idea flashed across the young officer's confused brain,
brought forth by the sight of the guard, for on looking beyond the man
there was no sign of the Boers' lantern hanging from the front bow of
their wagon-tilts.
"What about the Boers?" he said sharply.
"Been gone about an hour, sir. I suppose it was all right? Captain
Roby saw them start."
"Oh yes, it is quite right," said Lennox. "Now then, what about this
corn? Some of the Kaffirs been at it?"
"What do you think, sir?" said the man, holding down the lantern to shed
its light upon the ground, as they reached the open door of the store
and showed a good sprinkling of the bright yellow grains scattered about
to glisten in the pale light.
"Think? Well, it's plain enough," said Lennox. "Thieves have been
here."
"Yes, sir. The open door took my notice at once. That chap ought to
have seen it; but he didn't, or he'd have given the alarm."
"Go on," said Lennox, and he followed the man right into the barn-like
building, to stop short in front of the first of the half-dozen or so of
sacks at the end, this having been thrown down and cut right open, so
that a quantity of the maize had gushed out and was running like fine
shingle on to the floor.
"Kaffirs' work," said Lennox sharply.
"Well, sir, if I may give you my opinion I should say it was those
Boers," said the sergeant gruffly.
"What!"
"Man must eat, sir, and it strikes me that they, in their easy-going
way, thought it was as much theirs as ours, and helped theirselves to
enough to last them till they could get more."
"Well, whoever has done it,"--began Lennox.
Then he stopped short, and took a step forward. "Here, sergeant," he
cried, "hold the light higher."
This was done, and then the pair bent down quickly over the sacks, each
uttering an angry ejaculation.
"Why, it's sheer mischief, sergeant," cried Lennox. "Done with a sharp
knife evidently."
For the light now revealed something which the darkness had hitherto
hidden from their notice. Another sack had been ripped up, apparently
with a sharp knife, from top nearly to bottom. Another was in the same
condition, and a little further investigation showed that every one had
been cut, so that, on the farther side where all had been dark, there
was a slope of the yellow grain which had flowed out, leaving the sacks
one-third empty.
"Well, this is a rum go, sir," said the sergeant, scratching his head
with his unoccupied hand. "They must have got a couple of sackfuls
away."
"But why slit them up, when they could have shouldered a couple and
carried them off?"
"Can't say, sir," said the sergeant.
Lennox turned back to the doorway, and his companion followed with the
light.
"Hold it lower," said Lennox, and the man obeyed, showing the grain they
had first noticed lying scattered about, while a little examination
further showed the direction in which those who had carried it off had
gone, leaving sign, as a tracker would call it, in the shape of a few
grains which had fallen from the loads they carried.
"Follow 'em up, sir?" said the sergeant. "It would be easy enough if it
keeps like this."
"Yes," said Lennox. "We should know then if it was the Boers."
The man stepped forward with the door of the lantern opened and the
light held close to the ground, making the bright yellow grains stand
out clearly enough as he went on, though at the end of a minute instead
of being in little clusters they diminished to one here and another
there, all, however, running in one direction for some fifty yards; and
then the sergeant stopped.
"Seems rum, sir," he said.
"You mean that the Boers would not have been going in this direction?"
"That's so, sir. I'm beginning to think that it couldn't have been
them."
"I'm glad of it," said Lennox, "for I want to feel that we can trust
them. Who could it have been, then?"
"Some of the friendly natives, sir, I hope," replied the sergeant.
"But they wouldn't have come this way, sergeant. It looks more as if
some of our own people had been at the corn."
"That's just what I was thinking, sir," replied the sergeant, "only I
didn't want to say it."
"But that's impossible, sergeant. A man might have slit up the sacks
out of spite, or from sheer mischief, but he wouldn't have carried off
any."
"No, sir. He wouldn't, would he? Well, all I can say is that it's
rather queer."
"Well, go on," said Lennox; and the sergeant went on, tracing the grain
right out to the back of the corrugated iron huts that formed one side
of the square, and then past the angle and along the next side, now
losing the traces, but soon picking them up again, the hard, dry earth
completely refusing to give any trace of the bearer's feet.
Then the next angle of the square was reached, turned, and the sergeant
still passed on with the light.
"Gets thicker here," he whispered, and directly after he stopped and
pointed down at two or three handfuls of the bright grain.
"Seem to have set down a basket here, sir," he said softly. "Shall I go
on?"
"Go on? Yes, and trace the robbery home. The scoundrel who has
tampered with the stores deserves the severest punishment."
The sergeant proceeded, but more slowly now, for he had only a grain
here and a grain there to act as his guide; but these still pointed out
the direction taken by the marauders, till the trackers came suddenly
upon a good-sized patch.
"Tell you what, sir," whispered the sergeant; "there's only one chap in
it, and he's got such a swag he's obliged to keep stopping to rest."
"Yes, that seems to be the case, sergeant," said Lennox, looking
carefully about. "Let's see; we must be near the colonel's quarters,"
he whispered.
"That's right, sir. About twenty yards over yonder; and the fellows on
sentry ought to have seen the light and challenged us by now."
"No," said Lennox; "the houses completely shut us off. Go on."
The light was held low down again and swung here and there in the
direction that the marauder ought to have taken; but there was not a
grain to be seen to indicate the track, and the sergeant had to hark
back again and again without being able to find it.
"Rum thing, sir," he whispered. "He must have stopped here and found
that his basket was leaking, and patched it up, for I can't see another
grain anywhere."
"Neither can I, sergeant; but try again. Take a longer circle."
"Right, sir; but it does seem queer that he should have stopped to make
all fast just behind the colonel's quarters."
"It seems to indicate that it was the work of some stranger; otherwise
he would not have halted here."
"P'r'aps so, sir; but if he was a stranger how did he know where the
corn store was?"
"Can't say, sergeant. Try away."
"Right, sir," said the man, proceeding slowly step by step, with the
open lantern very close to the ground, and making a regular circle, in
the hope of cutting the way at last by which the supposed thief had gone
off after his last rest.
But minute succeeded minute without success, and Lennox was about to
urge his companion onward in another direction, when the sergeant
uttered a sharp ejaculation as if of alarm, jerking up the lantern as he
started back, and in the same movement blew out the light and shut the
lantern door with a loud snap.
Lennox, who was a couple of yards behind, sprang forward, unfastening
the cover of his pistol-holster and catching his companion by the arm,
while all around now was intensely dark.
"Enemy coming?" he whispered.
"Dunno yet, sir," panted the sergeant, whose voice sounded broken and
strange. "Something awfully wrong, sir."
"Speak out, man! What do you mean?" whispered Lennox, whose heart now
began to beat heavily.
"I've come upon something down here, sir."
"Ah! The thief--asleep?"
"No, sir," said the sergeant, and his fingers were heard fumbling with
the fastening of the lantern.
"What are you doing, man? Why don't you speak?"
"Making sure the light's quite out, sir. Can't speak for a moment--feel
choking."
"Then you hear the enemy approaching?"
"No, sir.--Ha! It's quite out! Now, sir, just you go down on one knee
and feel."
"I don't understand you, sergeant," whispered Lennox; but all the same
he bent down on one knee and felt about with his right hand, fully
expecting to touch a heap of the stolen grain.
"No corn," he said at the end of a few seconds; "but what's this--sand?"
"Take a pinch up, and taste it, sir. I hope it is."
"Taste it?" said Lennox half-angrily.
"Yes, sir," said the sergeant out of the darkness, and the faint rustle
he made and then a peculiar sound from his lips indicated that he was
setting the example.
The young officer hesitated no longer, but gathering up a pinch of the
dry sand from the ground, he just held it to the tip of his tongue.
"Why, sergeant," he whispered excitedly, "it's powder!"
"That's right, sir," replied the man. "Gunpowder--a train; a heavy
train running right and left."
"Nonsense!"
"Truth, sir. I had the lantern close to it, and might have fired it if
I'd dropped the lantern, as I nearly did."
"But what does it mean? Here, sergeant, that's what we have to see."
"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.