eboy's approach; but on seeing who it
was, he uttered a low whinnying sound and went on cropping the grass
once more, paying no further heed to the black, who proceeded to hobble,
his two fore-legs to keep him from going too far, and then returned to
me.

"No go away now," whispered Joeboy.

"It wasn't necessary," I said. "I shall watch him."

"Um!" said the black, and then he pointed in the way he intended to go,
laid the shield and two throwing-assagais by me, and then went rapidly
off on all-fours, trotting like a huge black dog.

I watched till he disappeared among the stones between me and the
sentry, and twice I caught sight of him again, or rather, I should say,
of his back; but only for a moment or two, and then he was gone, while I
let my eyes rest again upon the spot where I had last seen the sentry.
Then I watched my horse, and afterwards began to take more note of my
surroundings.

It did not take long. There were blocks of stone everywhere in the
wildest confusion, and among them here and there great straggling
patches of unwholesome-looking, fleshily-lobed prickly-pears with their
horrible thorns. Now and then, too, were miserable, dried-up
karroo-bushes, starved among the great blocks above the rich green
hollow where Sandho grazed. Everywhere else was parched loose red sand,
and beyond rose up the sterile mountains on either side of the pass.

Joeboy knew me better than I knew myself when he hobbled the horse, for
as I sat there watching and thinking how solitary it all was, wondering
how they were getting on at home, and whether the Boers were really in
force by the pass, a pleasant feeling of restfulness came over me, and
the mountains in the distance seemed to grow hazy and of a delicious
blue; the coarse bushes did not look so dry, nor the sickly
prickly-pears so unwholesome and like flat oval cakes of horribly
unwholesome human flesh joined together at their edges; while the little
patch of pasture where Sandho was feeding appeared to be of an
indescribably beautiful tinge of green.

"I wonder how long Joeboy will be," I remember thinking, as I drew my
injured ankle across my right knee and began to rub it softly. "He
ought to come back soon."

Then I ceased chafing the ankle, for it was very tender, and I wondered
how long it would take to get well again, so that I could leap from
stone to stone as sure-footed as ever.

It was a relief to leave it alone, and I let it glide back till