h long prepared for their work, had not swooped
down and driven the hated British into the sea. The Dutch population of
South Africa had not risen as was expected, and joined their kith and
kin to shake off English rule. But instead, Joubert and his hordes of
burghers had invaded Natal only to a point a few miles south of Colenso,
while in Cape Colony the Free Staters had barely passed the borders, and
Mafeking and Kimberley still laughed at the invading forces. It was not
a brilliant prospect, when the Boers had hoped to crush the British in
three weeks.

They had now done all the invading they were ever likely to do, and
though successes might still fall to their arms, though in
carefully-prepared trenches and defences they might resist and bear back
for a time the relieving-forces now marching towards Ladysmith and
Kimberley, yet they knew that those reinforcements would eventually
invade the two republics and appear before Bloemfontein and Pretoria
just as surely as the earth would continue to revolve.

No wonder, then, that they looked downcast and harassed, while many of
them secretly longed for a peaceful termination of the struggle, and a
life of freedom under British rule.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

WOUNDED AND A PRISONER.

A month after he reached Pretoria, Jack's wound was almost healed, and
he really had no need to keep his arm in a sling. But, for the first
time in his life, he made a pretence of feeling weak, and still walked
slowly, as if he were feeble after his adventurous encounter with the
lion.

Guy Richardson, too, was now quite strong again. His broken arm had
united firmly; but still he persisted in wearing it slung in a scarf,
and thus escaped being sent to the front.

They were both inmates of the hospital, which was once a school
building, but had now, like hosts of others, been turned into shelters
for the wounded. Of these, despite the small numbers acknowledged by
the Boers, there were now hundreds--so many indeed that the staff of
doctors and attendants was taxed severely.

The building in which Jack and Guy had been placed had large windows,
and as they were the only Englishmen there, no sentries were placed over
them. There were about twenty other patients in the hospital, who were
constantly changing, those who were sufficiently well being sent
elsewhere to make room for more severe cases. Consequently there was
little to fear from their companions, and the two young fello