most pair of oxen
in the team. Then the great beasts began to get upon their feet and
shake themselves.

"It's all over now," I thought, as I stood appalled by the noise made by
the bullocks, one of them lowing loudly; and, as if my despair was not
deep enough, I found from what I could hear that I had fired a train,
started a conflagration, or--to use another simile--touched one end of a
row of card houses and set all in motion. The action of rousing up the
blacks asleep beneath this one had communicated itself from wagon to
wagon on to the end. "Open sesame!" caused the cave of the Forty
Thieves to open; the magic word "Trek!" had started the wagon-drivers
and forelopers; and now I expected the next thing would be a rush of
Boer cavalry to surround us, unless Joeboy and I could hide.

"Yah! hor! whoo-oop! Trek!" cried Joeboy in his hoarsest voice, and he
ran from me towards the foreloper, leaving me half-stunned at the turn
matters had taken.

"Trek!" cried the black, who had climbed on to the box; then there was a
tremendous crack of the huge whip he wielded, the oxen jerked at the
trek-tow, the wheels creaked, and as I involuntarily took my rifle from
where it was slung and cocked it, the huge wagon began to lumber heavily
through the soft earth, and I walked by its side uninterrupted, finding
that in turn first one and then another of the six wagons started and
followed, till the entire row were in motion, following the lead of
Joeboy with the first foreloper, the whole business growing, in the
darkness, more and more like a feverish dream.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

NIGHT WORK.

By a sudden effort I threw off the dreamy sensation--the feeling that I
was half-stunned by the pressure of the task I had undertaken, now that
it had suddenly grown so much greater than I had anticipated--and I
walked alongside the wagon-box, breathing hard, and planning that at the
first sound of approaching enemies I would rush forward to where Joeboy
was tramping beside the foreloper, assagai in hand, and make a dash with
him for liberty. But the minutes glided by, as the line of wagons, all
going on with the regularity of some great, elongated machine, rolled
easily along over the soft earth, the rested bullocks pulling steadily
under the guidance of their leaders and drivers.

In vain I listened for the furious rush of horses and the challenges and
orders to stop; then, by degrees, I began to grasp the fact that, though