"I can't sleep," I said to myself, feeling that history was repeating
itself, as I lay on my side in the lit-up wagon, with my wrists tied
behind my back and my torture increased by having my legs served in the
same way just above the ankles and again above the knees. "No one could
sleep in such a position," I thought to myself; but I did not speak to
my companion in misery. I was too weary and heart-sore, thinking that I
should never see father, brother, aunt, or home again. "Poor old home
is gone for ever," I remember, was the thought that occurred to me.
Next I fell to wondering what had become of my people, and whether they
had fled to Natal. Then my thoughts turned quickly to something else:
to the heavy, regular breathing of Denham, who was fast asleep and
suffering from a bad dream, for he began muttering angrily. Then he was
silent, but only to begin again. I believed I knew the subject of his
dream, for he suddenly exclaimed, "Coward--coward blow!" Then he was
silent for a few minutes, breathing hard and fast as if his growing
excitement had worked up to fierce passion, for he was going over the
scene of an hour ago, ending with "I'll kill you--or you shall kill me."
He was suffering as if from a nightmare; and, unable to lie there
listening, I managed to work myself along over the rough, cage-like
bottom of the wagon till I could get my face close to his, just as he
was panting and sobbing as if in a desperate encounter in which his
strength was rapidly ebbing away.
"Denham!" I whispered. "Denham!"
"Ha!" he sighed softly, and ceased to struggle; while, as I lowered my
head from the painful position into which I had strained it, I felt
relieved to know that the poor, overwrought companion of my adventure
could forget his sorrows for the time in sleep.
"I wish I could sleep, and never wake again; for when the time comes I
shall be a coward"--such was the train of my thoughts. "Yes, I am sure
to be a coward. One doesn't think of the bullets when one is fighting
and they _ping_ and _whiz_ by one's head; but to stand up and face a row
of rifles, waiting for the order to fire--I'm afraid I shall be a coward
then."
I shivered now; and a minute later, as I listened to Denham's breathing,
I shivered again. Perhaps it was from fear, perhaps it was from being
cold, for the night wind, not far removed from freezing, blew up through
the openings in the bottom of the wagon. I told myself it was from
dread, and a peculiar feeling of shame and despair attacked me as the
thought of what would occur on the coming morning rose up so vivid and
clear that I strained my eyes round a little so as to look up at the
hanging lantern, but lowered them again with a shudder, for I seemed to
see a row of rifle-muzzles with the orifices directed down at me.
A noise occurred at the end of the wagon almost immediately, and upon
looking back there was in reality the barrel of a rifle forcing back the
canvas curtain, and then a second barrel appeared; but the owners only
used their weapons to hold back the curtain while their big-bearded
faces peered in to see if the prisoners were safe. They disappeared
directly, and I could hear muttering, and could smell the fumes of their
strong tobacco.
I was thinking with something like envy of the Boers' lot as compared
with mine, and the envy had to do with Denham, who was sleeping soundly;
and then something happened--the something which I had thought
impossible; but it was quite true. I was staring painfully up at the
lantern which shed its yellowish glow all around, and then it seemed to
have gone out, and I was fast asleep, with the restful sensation which
comes of utter exhaustion. I dreamed, and it was of home and the
beautiful orchard I had helped to plant, of driving in the cattle, of
chasing the ostriches over the veldt; and then it was of having Bob and
Denham with me in a wagon, for we were after lions. It was night, and
the moon shone in through the front of the wagon with a yellowish light
like that of a lantern hanging from the top of the tilt. The wind was
blowing up icily through the bottom, and I had just been awakened by the
distant deep barking roar of one of the great sand-coloured brutes. His
roar had startled our oxen and made them low uneasily, as if they knew
what the fate of one of them would be unless a flash of fire came from
beneath the wagon-tilt just as the lion had crawled up and gathered
himself together for a spring. The night was very cold, and somehow the
thought occurred to me that it would be a good thing if that lion made a
bound right on to the wagon-box, and then jumped in to seize me and
carry me off as a cat does a rat; and when its roar sounded again,
nearer, all dread and pain died out, for it seemed as if it would be far
better to be killed by a lion than to stand up before the muzzles of a
dozen rifles and be shot as a spy, while Moriarty stood smiling
malignantly at my fate. It was all very vivid as the oxen bellowed
softly now, and Bob whispered into my ear, his breath feeling quite hot
after the chilling iciness of the night wind. "Cheer up, old Val," he
said; "they won't dare to shoot you. I shall be there, and if they
attempt it, and that Irishman gives the order--you know how true I can
aim? I'll send a bullet right through his head, if father isn't first."
I started violently and made an effort to rise; but I only succeeded in
making a noise, as I looked up, to see the yellow lantern sending down
its feeble light; but a lion was barking faintly in the distance, and
some oxen close at hand were lowing uneasily. There was another sound,
too, at the back of the wagon--that of some one climbing up--and in a
wild fit of anxiety I listened for Bob's voice again. But it was only
that of the Boer who had first seized me, and he spoke in a gruff but
not unkindly way, as he said in his own tongue:
"Hullo! What's the matter? Lion scare you?"
"I've--I've been dreaming," I faltered heavily, my heart beating all the
time with big, regular thumps.
"Oh!--He's dreaming too. You're two brave boys to sleep like that the
night before you're both to be shot for spies."
"Ah!" I sighed as he dropped back heavily from the back of the wagon,
"and it was all a dream. Ugh!" I shuddered. I lay still again, my
mind going over the fantasy of the night, which came back so vividly,
yet was so strangely mixed and absurd; but all the time Denham slept on,
breathing heavily, dead to all the sorrows and horror of our unlucky
situation.
The night was cold--bitterly cold--and I was dreadfully wide awake,
wishing now that I could sleep again, but wishing in vain. I lay and
listened to the sound of talking outside, two of the Boers engaging in a
conversation in which I heard the word "cold." Then there came the
sound of the drawing aside of the back curtains, and a big, soft bundle
was pitched in, then another. Directly afterwards two of our guard
climbed in, opened one of the bundles, and spread it out on the floor
beyond us. It was a great skin _karosse_, or rug, such as the Kaffirs
make up of the hides of the big game.
"It's a cold night," said the man who had spoken before; and, one at my
head and the other at my feet, they lifted me between them on the big
rug.
"Now, sleepy," he said, "rouse up."
But Denham was perfectly insensible in his deep sleep of exhaustion, and
unconscious of what was going on as he was laid beside me. Then the
second bundle was opened and thrown over us.
"There," said the big Boer; "we don't want you to be too cold to stand
up like men in the morning. Can you go to sleep now?"
"Yes; thank you," I said hoarsely, and I lay and listened as they got
out of the wagon.
"Can I sleep?" I thought. "No. But if I could, and dream all that
again! Poor old Bob!" I murmured to myself as a peculiar sensation of
warmth began to creep through my numbed limbs, and once more I lay
thinking about that strangely confused and realistic dream of which
fragments began to flit before me, and for a time made me more wakeful,
but not for long. Then the morning, the thoughts of my coming fate, the
recollection of the night-alarm which seemed to have put an end to what
must have been intended for a night-attack, even the sense of pain--all
these died away, and I was soundly asleep once more; this time without a
dream.