laughing.

"That's done," said West, replacing his paper sandwich in his haversack,
and a few minutes later, as they still rode slowly on, Ingleborough
spoke again.

"What now?" he said.

"Making another sandwich," was the reply.

"Another?"

"Yes, of the Mafeking despatch."

"Ah, of course; but you will not eat that?"

"Only in the last extremity."

"Good," said Ingleborough, "and I hope we shall have no last extremes."

He had hardly spoken when a sharp challenge in Boer-Dutch rang out,
apparently from about fifty yards to their left, and, as if in obedience
to the demand, the two Basuto ponies the young men rode stopped
suddenly.

Ingleborough leaned down sidewise and placed his lips close to his
companion's ear.

"Which is it to be?" he said. "One is as easy as the other--forward or
back?"

"One's as safe as the other," replied West, under his breath.
"Forward."

They were in the act of pressing their horses' sides to urge them on
when there was a flash of light from the position of the man who had
uttered the challenge, and almost immediately the humming, buzzing sound
as of a large beetle whizzing by them in its nocturnal flight, and at
the same moment there was the sharp crack of a rifle.

CHAPTER TEN.

ANSON'S BLESSING.

"Bless 'em!" said Anson to himself that same evening, "I don't wish 'em
any harm. I only hope that before they've gone far the Boers will
challenge them.

"I can almost see it now: getting dark, and an outpost challenges.
`Come on, gallop!' says old Ingle, and they stick their spurs into their
nags and are off over the veldt. Then _crack, cracky crack_, go the
rifles till the saddles are emptied and two gallant defenders of
Kimberley and brave despatch-riders lie kicking in the dust.

"Ugh! How. I should like to be there with my flute. I'd stand and
look on till they'd given their last kick and stretched themselves out
straight, and then I'd play the `Dead March' in `Saul' all over 'em
both. Don't suppose they'd know; but if they could hear it they
wouldn't sneer at my `tootling old flute'--as Ingle called it--any more.

"Urrrr! I hated the pair of 'em. Ingle was a hound--a regular
sniffing, smelling-out hound, and Noll West a miserable, sneaking cur.
Beasts! So very good and nice and straightforward. Hundreds of
thousands of pounds' worth--yes, millions' worth of diamonds being
scraped together by the company, and a poor fellow not allowed to have a
ha