"The chief's in an awful rage, Val," said Denham, when he came to me
after a thorough search had seemed to prove that the prisoner had eluded
the vigilance of the sentries. "He swears that some one must have been
acting in collusion with the pompous blackguard, and that he means to
have the whole of our Irish boys before him and cross-examine the lot."
"I hope he will not," I said.
"So do I; for I don't believe one of them would have lent him a hand,
and it would offend them all."
"Yes," I said; "they're all as hot-headed and peppery as can be."
"Spoiling for a fight," put in Denham.
"Yes; and so full of that queer feeling which makes them think a set is
made against them because they are Irish."
"Exactly," cried my companion; "and it's such a mistake on their part,
because we always like them for their high spirits and love of a bit of
fun."
"They're the wittiest and cleverest fellows in the corps."
"And if I wanted a dozen chaps to back me up in some dangerous business,
I'd sooner depend on them for standing to me to the last than any one I
know."
"Oh! it would be a pity," I said warmly. "I hope the Colonel will think
better of it."
Denham winked at me as we sat in shelter by the light of a
newly-invented lamp, made of a bully-beef tin cut down shallow and with
a couple of dints in the side; it was full of melted fat, across which a
strip out of the leg of an old cotton stocking had been laid so that the
two ends projected an inch beyond the two spout-like dints.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"The chief," said Denham, "good old boy, kicks up a shindy, and swears
he'll do this or that, and then he thinks better of it. I've got off my
wigging."
"How do you know?" I said.
"Met the old boy after I had been having a regular hunt everywhere with
half-a-dozen men, and he nodded to me in quite a friendly way. `Thank
you, Denham,' he said. `Tell your men that they were very smart.'"
"I'm glad of that," I said.
"Same here, dear boy. It's his way, bless him! He likes a red rag to
go at, the old John Bull that he is; but if another begins to flutter
somewhere else, he forgets number one and goes in for number two."
"Yes, I've noticed that," I said. "But it's a great pity that fellow
got away. I believe he has been shamming a bit lately."
"No doubt about it. The nuisance of it is, that the brute will go and
put the Boers up to everything as to our strength, supplies, ammunition,
and goodness knows what else. But, look here, I'm going on now to see
how Sam Wren is."
"Sam Wren?" I cried wonderingly. "What's the matter with him?"
"Matter? Why, he was the sentry Moriarty knocked down."
"Oh, poor fellow! I am sorry," I said, for the private in question was
one of the smartest and best-tempered men in our troop.
"So's everybody," replied Denham. "I say: it was contusion in his case,
not collusion."
"Where is he?" I said.
"In hospital. Duncombe's a bit uneasy about him. I'm going on again to
see him. Will you come?"
"Of course," I said eagerly.
"Come along, then. We'll take the lamp, or some sentry may be popping
at us."
"The wind will puff it out in that narrow passage."
"Not as I shall carry it," replied my companion; and he led off, with
his broad-brimmed felt held over the flickering wick, in and out among
the fallen stones between the walls, nearly to the other side of the
court. Here another covered-in patch had been turned into a fairly snug
hospital by hanging up two wagon-tilts twenty feet apart, after clearing
away the loose stones; and a certain number of fairly comfortable beds
had been made of the captured corn-sacks.
On reaching the first great curtain Denham called upon me to hold it
aside, as his hands were full; and as I did so I caught sight, on the
right-hand side, of our doctor down on one knee and bending over his
patient, whose face could be seen by the light of a lantern placed upon
a stone, while his voice sounded plainly, as if he were replying to
something the surgeon had said.
"Only me, Duncombe," said Denham. "Just come to see how Wren is."
"Better, thank goodness," said the doctor. "He seemed to come-to about
five minutes ago."
"I am glad, Wren," said Denham, setting down the lamp beside the
lantern.
"Thank ye, sir," said the poor fellow, smiling. "Moray's come with me
to look you up." The wounded man looked pleased to see me, and then his
face puckered up as he turned his eyes again to the doctor and said:
"I don't mind the crack on the head, sir, a bit. Soldiers deal in hard
knocks, and they must expect to get some back in return. I know I've
given plenty. It's being such a soft worries me."
"Well, don't let it worry you. Help me by taking it all coolly, and
I'll soon get you well again."
"That you will, sir. I know that," said the man gently. "But I feel as
if I should like to tell the Colonel that I was trying to do my duty."
"He doesn't want telling that, Sam," said Denham. "Of course you were."
"But I oughtn't to have been such a fool, sir--such a soft Tommy of a
fellow. I knew he was a humbug; but he looked so bad, and pulled such a
long face, that I didn't like to be hard. `Here, sentry,' he says, as
he sat up with his back to the wall, just after you'd gone, `this right
leg's gone all dead again. It's strained and wrenched through the horse
lying upon it all those hours. Just come and double up one of those
sacks and lay it underneath for a cushion. The pain keeps me from going
to sleep.'"
"Oh, that's how it happened--was it?" said the doctor, while we two
listened eagerly.
"I'm coming to it directly, sir," said the man querulously. "Well, sir,
seeing as I felt that, as I was sentry over the hospital, I was in
charge of a wounded man as well, I just rested my rifle against the
wall, picked up one of the sacks, and doubled it in four. Then, just as
innocent as a babby, I kneels down, lifts up his leg softly, bending
over him like, and was just shoving the bit of a cushion-like thing
under his knee, when it seemed as if one of the big stones up there had
fallen flat on the back of my head, and I heard some one say, `Take
that, you ugly Sassenach beast! and see how you like lying in hospital.'
Then it was all black, sir, till I opened my eyes and saw you holding
that stuff to my lips."
"Yes, my man," said the doctor; "now don't talk any more, but lie
still."
"Tell me about that crack on the head again, sir, please. It wasn't one
of the stones fell down, then?"
"No; the prisoner must have got hold of this piece somehow, then kept it
ready by the side of his bed, and struck you down."
"And a nasty, dirty, cowardly blow, too," said the poor fellow feebly.
"Beg pardon, sir; you'll pull me round as quickly as you can--won't
you?"
"Of course," said the doctor, smiling.
"Thank ye, sir. I want to have an interview with that gentleman again."
"I suppose so," said Denham; "and so do about four hundred of the corps.
He'd have been stood up with his back to one of the walls and shot by
this time, but the brute has got away."
"We shall run against him again, though, sir," said the wounded man
confidently, "and we shan't mistake him for any one else.--Beg pardon,
though, sir; you're quite sure my skull isn't broken?"
"Quite," said the doctor. "Now be quiet."
"Certainly, sir; but is it cracked?"
"No, nor yet cracked," said the doctor, smiling. "You're suffering from
concussion of the brain."
"And I'll concuss his brain, sir, if I can only get a chance; but I will
do it fair and--Yes, sir, I've done, and I'm going to sleep."
He smiled at us both, and then closed his eyes; while, after a few words
with the doctor, Denham picked up the lamp, and we went gently to the
other rough curtain.
"It's just as near to go back this way," said Denham as I lowered the
canvas again, and we passed on, to be confronted directly after by a
sentry, who challenged with his levelled bayonet pointed at our breasts;
but after giving the word we passed on.
"Seems queer for poor Sam Wren," said my companion, "changing places
like that. Sentry one moment; patient the next. Bah! it is a nuisance
that the prisoner should have been able to get away."
"And go back to the Boers, full of all he has seen here," I said.
"Well, it will make us all the more careful," said Denham, still shading
the lamp with his hat as we went on, till we had passed where we could
hear the movement of the horses tethered to the long lines, with none
too much room to stir, poor beasts! Commenting on the condition of our
mounts, I remarked that, as the Boers had come in so close, the horses
would have but little opportunity for stretching their legs.
"Oh, don't you be afraid about that; the chief isn't the man to let the
Doppies come close like this without having something to say on his
side. You may depend upon it that the moment he feels that the horses
are going the wrong way, there'll be such a dash made as will astonish
our friends outside."
"Well, I shall not be sorry," I said, "for I don't like being shut up as
we are. Look up. I say, what a lovely starlight night!"
"No, thank you," replied Denham. "I like fine nights, but I like to
take care of my shins; and if I get star-gazing the lamp will be blown
out, and we shall be going down one of those holes into the old
gold-mine. There is one just in front--isn't there?"
"Two," I said; "but there are great stones laid across now."
"Across the middle; but there's plenty of room to go down on one side.
Look! Here we are."
He stopped and held the lamp down, its feeble rays showing that he was
upon a broad stone laid across one of the old mine-shafts, one of those
close by the ancient furnace we had discovered on our first visit. On
this he now halted for a moment, partly from curiosity, partly to draw
my attention to the danger.
"I should like to tie some of the horses' reins together and have a
decent lantern, so as to be let down to explore these places."
"You couldn't," I said. "Don't you remember when we threw a stone down
this one it fell some distance and then went splash into the water?"
"It was the one farther on, not this one," said Denham, bending lower.
"Well, you may depend upon it that there'd be no going far before coming
to water."
"Val!" cried my companion suddenly.
"What's the matter?"
"That's what some of our chaps have been doing."
"What! going down to the water?"
"No; exploring to find gold. Look here; they've been doing exactly what
I said. Here's a rein tied round this stone with the end going right
down, and--"
_Crash_!
"Ah! Val!"
There was the sound of a couple of strokes, one falling upon the lamp,
which seemed to leap down into the shaft at our feet, the other stroke
falling on Denham's head; and as I sprang to his assistance I was
conscious of receiving a tremendous thrust which sent me headlong
downward, as if I were making a dive from the stone I tried to cross.
The next minute my head came in contact with stones, strange
scintillations of light flashed before my eyes, there was a roar as of
thunder in my ears, and then all was blank.