Once more in the wagon, one ox a pair of despondent prisoners, hot in
temper as well as in person with the excitement of what he had so lately
gone through, West cast himself down upon the floor ready to groan,
while his more experienced, harder comrade sat down cross-legged to
think.
"If I only knew where the coat was!" said West, with a groan.
"Hah!" sighed Ingleborough. "I'm afraid it's gone for ever! That
Kaffir was one of the Boers' slave-like servants, of course, or he
wouldn't have been in the camp; and after the attempt at theft, if he
was not too badly wounded, he would bolt right off for his own people.
It's a sad business, old lad: but I don't think you need fear that it
will fall into the Boers' hands."
"No, I don't fear that!" replied West. "But it is the misery and shame
of the failure that worries me! I did so mean to succeed!"
"Hah! Yes," sighed Ingleborough again; "but someone said--hang me if I
know who!--`'Tis not in mortals to command success.' You're only a
mortal, old fellow, and you must make the best of it."
West groaned.
"It's horribly hard; just, too, as I had hatched out a way of escape,"
continued Ingleborough.
"I don't want to escape now."
"What? You don't mean to join the Boers as old Fat Face suggested?"
"Why not?" said West dismally. "I dare not go back to Kimberley."
"You daren't turn traitor to your country, and, though you feel right
down in the dumps, you dare go back to Kimberley and walk straight to
the Commandant and speak out like a man, saying: `I did my best, sir;
but I failed dismally!'"
"Ah!" sighed West.
"And he would reply: `Well, it's a bad job, my lad; but it's the fortune
of war.'"
West held out his hand as he sat there tailor-fashion by his friend in
the bottom of the wagon, and there was a warm grip exchanged.
"Bravo, boy! You're coming round! I knew it. You only wanted time."
"Thank you, Ingle! Now then, what was your idea of escaping?"
"Oh, a very simple one, but as likely to succeed as to fail."
"Tell me at once! It will keep me from thinking about that miserable
despatch."
"And the jacket! You and I will have to take turn and turn with mine
when the cold nights come, unless we pretend to lovely Anson that we are
going to stop, and ask him to get you a fresh covering for your chest
and back."
"Oh, none of that, Ingle! I can't bear lying subterfuges. I'd sooner
bear the cold of the bitter nights."
"Don't use big words, lad! Subterfuge, indeed! Say _dodge_--a war
dodge. But about my plan! You have noticed that for some reason they
have not taken our ponies away."
"Yes, they are still tethered to the wheel ox that wagon. What of that?
It would be impossible to get to them and ride out unchallenged."
"Oh no: not my way!"
"What is your way?" said West excitedly.
"Last night was dark as pitch."
"Yes; but there are double lines of sentries about."
"With sharp eyes too; but there was a commando rode out, evidently to
patrol the country and look out for our people."
"Yes; I heard them ride away."
"And I heard them come back at daybreak; but I was too lazy to get up."
"I don't see what you are aiming at," said West wearily; "but I suppose
you have some good idea--I hope a plausible one."
"I think it is, old lad," said Ingleborough, speaking now in a low
whisper. "Suppose when that commando musters after dark--I am supposing
that one will go out again to-night--suppose, I say, when it musters we
had crept out of the wagon and crawled as far as that one where our
ponies are tethered?"
West's hand stole forward to grip his comrade's knee.
"Ah, you're beginning to grasp it!" said Ingleborough. "Then, as I
still have my knife, suppose I cut the reins and we mounted."
"And joined the muster?" said West, in a hoarse whisper.
"It isn't a dragoon troop, with men answering the roll-call and telling
off in fours from the right."
"No, just a crowd!" said West excitedly.
"Exactly! There's only one reason why we shouldn't succeed."
"What's that?"
"We don't look rough and blackguardly enough."
"Oh, Ingle, I quite grasp it now!"
"I've been quite aware of that, old lad, for the last minute--that and
something else. I don't know what will have happened when the war is
over, but at present I don't wear a wooden leg. Oh, my knee! I didn't
think your fingers were made of bone."
"I beg your pardon, old fellow!"
"Don't name it, lad! I'm very glad you have so much energy in you, and
proud of my powers of enduring such a vice-like--or say vicious--grip
without holloaing out. Next time try your strength on Anson! Why, your
fingers would almost go through his fat."
"Ingle, we must try it to-night."
"Or the first opportunity."
"Why didn't you think of that before we lost the despatch?"
"Hah! Why didn't I? Suppose it didn't come!"
West rose and crept to the end of the wagon and looked out.
"The ponies are still there," he whispered, and then he started
violently, for a voice at the other end of the wagon cried: "Hallo, you
two!"
West turned, with his heart sinking, convinced that the man must have
heard.
"I'm just off sentry!" the Boer said good-humouredly. "I must have
shaved that Kaffir somewhere and not hurt him much. As soon as I was
relieved I went and had a good look for him; but there wasn't so much as
a drop of blood."
"Poor wretch!" thought West.
"Lucky for him!" said Ingleborough, in Dutch.
"But I made the beggar drop the jacket," said the Boer, laughing; and,
to the delight of the prisoners, he sent it flying into the wagon.
That was all, and the sentry strode away, just as West bounded upon the
recovered garment like a tiger upon its prey.
"Say bless him!" whispered Ingleborough.
"Oh, Ingle!" groaned his companion, in a choking voice: "I can feel the
despatch quite safe."
"Hah!" ejaculated Ingleborough.
"And such a little while ago I was ready to curse fate and the very hour
I was born!"
"And very wrong of you too, my son!" said Ingleborough, in tones which
betrayed some emotion. "Cursing's a very bad habit, and only belongs to
times when wicked old men lived in old-fashioned plays and indulged in
it upon all kinds of occasions, especially when they had sons and
daughters who wanted to marry somebody else."
"Oh, Ingle! Oh, Ingle! The sky doesn't look so covered with black
clouds now."
"By no means, my lad! I can see enough blue sky to make a Dutchman a
pair of breeches--for Dutchman let's say Boer. I say, what do you say
to going out on patrol to-night?"
"Yes, yes, of course! But we have no guns!"
"Nor bandoliers, and that's a fact! Well, it's of no use to think of
getting our own back again, even if we said we repented and meant to
join the Boers at once."
"They wouldn't trust us!"
"Too slim! Fools if they did!"
"Then it is hopeless!" said West. "Someone would notice it at once!"
"Yes," said Ingleborough, "and those were beautiful rifles too. But
look here: I could see a way out of the difficulty, only you are so
scrupulous. One mustn't tell a diplomatic fib."
"I can't stand telling an outrageous lie, even under stern necessity!"
said West, pulling down his jacket after putting it on.
"And you are so horribly honest!"
"Yes," said West bitterly. "I have not, as Anson declared, been busy
buying illicit-diamonds. But why do you say this--what do you mean?"
"I meant that I'd have risked it as soon as it was dark, and crept away
to steal a couple of the Boers' Mausers--just like a cat--mouser after
Mauser--I say, what a horrible joke!"
West was silent.
"They say they're splendid pieces; but it would be a terrible theft,
because I should take the bandoliers too."
West was still silent.
"I say, lad," whispered Ingleborough, laughing gently: "you couldn't
object to my stealing the rifles that would be used to kill our men."
"How would you manage?" whispered West.
"Hah!" sighed Ingleborough, relieving his breast of a long pent-up
breath, as he looked up at the arched-in wagon-tilt: "this fellow's very
nearly as wicked as I am."
"Don't--don't joke!" said West: "the matter is too serious. How would
you manage?"
"Never you mind, old Very Particular! Leave that to me! By the way,
though, before I lie down and have a good nap, in case I should be out
all night, I don't think there is the slightest probability of our
joining the Boer forces, do you?"
"Not the slightest!" answered West drily. "There'll be plenty of
traitors to their country without us!"
Five minutes later Ingleborough, whose head troubled him more than he
owned to, was sleeping soundly, leaving West thinking deeply over the
prospects of a daring escape, and every now and then glancing out and
across the laager to make sure that the ponies had not been moved, as
well as to fix the position of every wagon well in his mind ready for
the time when his comrade and he would be stealing across in the dark,
and thinking at times that the Boers must be mad to leave their
prisoners' mounts tethered in sight of their temporary prison.
"But they're altogether mad!" he mused, "or they would never have dared
to defy the power of England in the way they have done!"
This thought had hardly passed through his mind when he saw a group of
the laager's occupants come by the prison wagon, each with a couple of
well-filled bandoliers crossbelt-fashion over his breast, and rifle
slung, making for the range forming one side of the laager. They broke
up into twos and threes, and as they approached they unslung their
weapons and took off their cartridge-belts to place them beneath the
wagon-tilts, while they settled down to prepare a meal before having a
rest.
"Just come off duty!" thought the prisoner, and, with his heart beating
fast, he sat watching two of the men and then gazing hard at the nearest
wagon, piercing in imagination the thick canvas covering spread over the
arching-in hoops, and seeing, as he believed, exactly where two Mauser
rifles and the Boers' bandoliers had been laid.
"Why, if it were dark," he thought, "I could creep out and secure those
two rifles as easily as possible--if they were not taken away!"
West's face turned scarlet, and it was not from the heat of the sun upon
the wagon-tilt, nor from the sultry air which passed in from one end and
out at the other.
He drew a deep breath and moved towards Ingleborough to tell him of the
burning thoughts within him; but his comrade was sleeping so peacefully
that he shrank from awakening him.
"He'll want all his strength!" thought West, and then he fell to
wondering whether or not they would succeed.