that of the trooper refused point-blank and trotted
off, snorting idiotically, right down the fence into the very teeth of
the advancing enemy.

John Ames turned, then rode back.

"Get up, Major, for Heaven's sake!"

Shackleton had already been on his feet, but subsided again with a
groan.

"Can't. Ankle gone. Guess my time's here--right here," he panted.
"You go on."

"We don't do things that way, damn it!" John Ames answered, in his
strong excitement. "Here, get up on my horse."

He had dismounted. Shackleton's fool of an animal had already recovered
itself and made itself scarce. The advancing impi was barely three
hundred yards distant, pouring onward, shivering the air with its deep
vibrating "Jji-jji!"

"You go on!" repeated the American. "I won't be taken alive."

John Ames _said_ no more. He _did_. Shackleton, fortunately, was
rather a small man, and light. The other seized him under the
shoulders, and by dint of half lifting, half pushing, got him bodily
into the saddle.

"Now go!" he shouted. "I'll hold on the stirrup."

All this had taken something under a minute.

They went. The impi was now pouring through the fence, whose momentary
obstruction almost made a difference of life or death to the fugitives.
How they escaped John Ames never knew. Sky, earth, the distant township
beneath, all whirled round and round before him. Twice he nearly lost
hold of the stirrup-leather and would have fallen; then at last became
aware of slackening pace. Turning, dizzy and exhausted, he saw that the
enemy had abandoned pursuit.

And what of the unfortunate trooper? Not much, and that soon over,
luckily. Abandoning his mount, he made a rush for the fence, but too
late. A very hail of assegais was showered upon him, and he fell, half
in, half out, across the wire. With a roar of exultation the savages
were around him. Assegais gleamed in the air, first bright, then red,
and in a second nothing was left but a shapeless and mangled mass.

Such tragedies, however, come but under the simple word "losses," and
these, all things considered, had not been great. On the other hand,
the enemy had suffered severely, and if, by sheer force of overwhelming
numbers, he had succeeded in driving them back, those forming the
reconnaissance were not disposed to feel it acutely. They were quite
ready to go in at him another day, and thus make things even.

But Shackleton, otherwise "The Major," was not go