s,
"do you feel any stronger yet?"

"I don't know. I seem to fancy I do. Why?"

"I thought you did because you've been so quiet ever since we had that
talk with the Sergeant. I feel stronger."

"Why do you ask?" he said.

"Because I've been thinking that I ought to do that job, and you ought
to be on the lookout again, to come to my help if I succeed."

"No," he said quickly; "it's a job for two. I'd go with you."

"But I should take Joeboy."

"Then it's a job for three, Val; we can take our time, and the slower we
go perhaps the better. If we get stopped by the Boers, we're wounded
and getting away from the fighting."

"Yes, that might do. We do look bad."

"Horribly bad, Val. You look a miserable wreck of a fellow."

"And you, I won't say what," I retorted, a little irritably.

"So much the better. When shall we go--to-night?"

"No. Let's have a good sleep to-night, and talk to Joeboy about it in
the morning. To-morrow night as soon as it's dark we'll be off," I
said.

"The Colonel won't let us go if we volunteer."

"Of course not. Let's go without leave; but that will look like
deserting."

"I don't care what it looks like so long as we can get through and bring
help."

"The same here."

"But we ought to steal away to-night," said Denham.

"No; let's have Joeboy. Ha!" I said, with a sigh of relief. "I seem
to see my way now, and I shall sleep like a top."

"I'm so relieved, Val, old chap, that I'm half-asleep now. Quite a
restful feeling has come over me. Good-night."

"Good-night," I replied; and I have some faint recollection of the rays
of a lantern beating down and looking red through my eyelids, and then
of feeling a soft hand upon my temples. But the next thing I fully
realised was that it was a bright, sunny morning, and that Denham was
sitting up in his sack-bed.

"How do you feel?" he cried eagerly.

"Like going off as soon as it's dark."

"So do I," he said. "I'm a deal better now. What's the first thing to
do--smuggle some meal to take with us?"

"I don't know," I replied. "Yes, perhaps we'd better take some; and,
I say, we must have bandages on our heads as well as the
sticking-plaster."

"Of course. Then, I say, as soon as ever we've had breakfast we'll talk
to Joeboy."

"Exactly," I replied. "He'll be half-mad to go, and when we've said all
we want to him we'll come back and lie down again."

"Oh! What for?"

"So as to rest and sleep all we p