the pangs endured by the brave lads who lay patiently
bearing their unhappy lot, suffering the agony of wounds, and many more
the miseries of disease.

There was trouble too with the prisoners, and West and his companion
were present when a desperate attempt to escape was made by a party
worked upon by one of their leaders--a half-mad fanatical being whose
preachings had led many to believe that the English conquerors were
about to reduce the Boers to a complete state of slavery.

The attempt failed, and the leader was one of those who fell in the
terrible encounter which ensued.

Both West and Ingleborough were witnesses of the resulting fight, for
the attempt was made in broad daylight, just when such a venture was
least expected, and, after those who seized upon a couple of score of
the captured horses and tried to gallop off had been recaptured, the
young men worked hard in helping to carry the wounded to the patch of
wagons that formed the field hospital.

"Ugh!" said West, with a shudder, after he and Ingleborough had
deposited a terribly-injured Boer before one of the regimental surgeons;
"let's get down to the spruit and wash some of this horror away."

"Yes," said Ingleborough, after a glance at his own hands; "we couldn't
look worse if we had been in the fight! Horrible!"

"It's one thing to be in the wild excitement of a battle, I suppose,"
said West; "but this business after seems to turn my blood cold."

Ingleborough made no reply, and the pair had enough to do afterwards in
descending the well-wooded, almost perpendicular bank to where the
little river ran bubbling and foaming along, clear and bright.

"Ha!" sighed West; "that's better! It was horrible, though, to see
those poor wretches shot down."

"Um!" murmured Ingleborough dubiously. "Not very! They killed the
sentries first with their own bayonets!"

"In a desperate struggle for freedom, though! But there, I'm not going
to try and defend them!"

"No, don't, please!" said Ingleborough. "I can't get away from the fact
that they began the war, that the Free State had no excuse whatever, and
that the enemy have behaved in the most cruel and merciless way to the
people of the towns they have besieged."

"All right! I suppose you are right; but I can't help feeling sorry for
the beaten."

"Feel sorry for our own party then!" said Ingleborough, laughing. "Why,
Noll, lad, we must not holloa till we are out of the wood. This last is
a