self. "I thought I
should always have had Brenlands to go to; and first of all I got
chucked out of the school a year before I need have left, and then this
happens about the watch. In both cases I've Raymond Fosberton to
thank, in a great measure, for what happened. I'll pay him out if ever
I get the chance."

The thought of his cousin brought back to his mind the recollection of
the conversation he had overheard that morning. Strange that Mr.
Lawson should have known Raymond! Jack wondered what the monetary
transaction could have been that had been alluded to by his officer.

Gradually a sense of drowsiness crept over him, and his heavy head sank
back upon the sand.

"Stand to your arms!" He clutched instinctively at the rifle by his
side, and rose to his feet; the noise of the tom-toms seemed close at
hand.

"They're coming!" But no; it was a false alarm. Once more the men
settled down, and silence fell on the zareba. Suddenly there was a
wild yell from one of the sleepers.

"What's up there?--man hit?"

"No--silly chump!--only dreaming!"

Again Jack dozed off, to be wakened, after what seemed only a moment of
forgetfulness, by Joe Crouch shaking him by the shoulder. The word was
once more being passed along, "Stand to your arms!" and the men lay
with their hands upon their rifles. Daybreak was near, and an attack
might be expected at any moment.

The sky was ghostly with the coming dawn, the air raw and cold. Jack
shivered, and "wished for the day."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE BATTLE.

"Then he heard a roaring sound, quite terrible enough to frighten the
bravest man."--_The Brave Tin Soldier_.

Numbed with the cold, and stiff from lying so long in a cramped
position, Jack and many of his comrades rose as the daylight
strengthened, to stretch their legs and stamp some feeling into their
feet. As they did so, however, the dropping shots of the enemy rapidly
increased to a sharp fusilade; bullets whizzed overhead, or knocked up
little spurts of sand and dust within the zareba; and the defenders
were glad enough to once more seek the shelter of the low wall and
parapet of earth. Several men were wounded, and the surgeons commenced
their arduous duties--services which so often demand the exercise of
the highest courage and devotion, and yet seldom meet with their due
share of recognition in the records of the battlefield. Ever and anon
the screw-guns thundered a reply to the popping of th