enerally brought back full of the
scattered bones of game which had at one time swarmed in the
neighbourhood, but had been ruthlessly slaughtered by the Boers.

So the days glided on, with not the slightest prospect, apparently, of
our escape.

"Every one's getting precious impatient, Val," said Denham one day when
we were idling up on the walls with his field-glass, after lying
listlessly chatting about the old place and wondering what sort of
people they were who built it, and whether they did originally come
gold-hunting from Tyre and Sidon. "Yes," he added, "we are impatient in
the extreme."

"It doesn't seem like it," I replied; "the men are contented enough."

"Pooh! They're nobody. I mean the officers. The chief's leg's pretty
nearly right again, and he was saying at mess only yesterday that it was
a most unnatural state of affairs for British officers to be forced by a
set of low-bred Dutch Boers, no better than farm-labourers, to eat their
beef without either mustard, horse-radish, or salt."

"Horrible state of destitution," I said quietly.

"None of your sneers, Farmer Val," he cried. "He's right, and I'm
getting sick of it myself. He says it is such an ignoble position for a
mounted corps to suffer themselves to be shut up here, and not to make
another dash for freedom."

"Well, I shall be glad if we make another attempt to get through their
lines," I said thoughtfully.

"That's what the Major said, when, hang me! if the chief didn't turn
suddenly round like a weathercock, and say that what we were doing was
quite right, because we held this great force of Boers occupied so that
the General might carry out his plans without being harassed by so large
a body of men."

"That's right enough," I said.

"Don't you get blowing hot and cold," cried Denham, with impatience.
"Then some one else sided with the Colonel. It was the doctor, I think.
He said the General must know when, where, and how we were situated,
and that sooner or later he would attack the Boers, rout them, and set
us at liberty."

"That sounds wise," I hazarded.

"No, it doesn't," said my companion; "because we shouldn't want setting
at liberty then. Do you suppose that if we heard the General's guns,
and found that he was attacking the enemy, we should sit still here and
look on?"

"Well, it wouldn't be right," I replied.

"Right? Of course not. As soon as the attack was made we should file
out and begin to hover on the