our
night attack and the capture of the six wagons and teams."

"I say," said the Sergeant, and he looked from one to the other.

"Well, what do you say?" cried Denham.

"Doctor been changing your physic?"

"Why?" I said.

"Because you both look fifty pounds better than you did yesterday."

"It's the hope that has come, Briggs," cried Denham, his face lighting
up.

"Haven't got a bit to spare, have you, sir?" said the Sergeant; "because
I should like to try how it would agree with my case, for I'm horribly
down in the mouth at present. I don't like the look of things at all."

"What do you mean?" asked Denham.

"I had a look round at the horses, sir, last night."

"Not got the horse-sickness, Briggs?"

"No, sir, not so bad as that; but, speaking as an old cavalry man, I say
that they mustn't be kept shut up much longer. But there, I shall be
spoiling your looks and knocking your hope over. Good-morning,
gentlemen--I mean, lieutenant and private. Glad to see you both look so
well. I'll tell Joe Black you want him."

"Yes, he'd upset our hopefulness altogether, Val, if it wasn't for one
thing--eh?" said Denham as the wagon-tilt swung to after the Sergeant.
"But, I say, that fellow of yours ought to be here by now."

"Yes," I said. But we waited anxiously for quite an hour before the man
we had sent came back.

"Can't find the black, sir," he said.

"Did you go to the horses?"

"Yes, sir, and everywhere else."

"You didn't go to the butcher's?" I asked.

"Yes, I did; but he hadn't been there."

"Perhaps he's gone out with the bullock drove."

"No," said the man; "the oxen are being kept in this morning because the
Boers have come a hundred yards nearer during the night. They're well
in opposite the gateway, and the Colonel's having our works there
strengthened."

"The Sergeant didn't say a word about that," Denham said to me.

I shook my head, and turned to the messenger.

"Is he asleep somewhere about the walls?" I asked.

"No; I looked there," was the reply. "He always snoozes up on the inner
wall, just above the water-hole. There's a place where a big stone has
fallen out and no bullets can get at him. I looked there twice."

"Hasn't fallen down one of the holes, has he?" said Denham.

"Not he, sir," replied the man, laughing. "He'd go about anywhere in
the dark, looking like a bit o' nothing, only you couldn't see it in the
darkness, and never knock against a thing. It's