cted, and occupied
the kopje, the Boers had brought up a heavy gun with the intention of
mounting it before morning, and had failed.

"What's to be the next?" said Dickenson.

"Next?" cried Lennox. "You must cover us with three parts of the men
while with the rest I try to get the gun right up to the kopje."

It was no easy task, for the driver and foreloper of the team had fled
with the artillerymen and the rest of the Boers, while the pricked oxen
were disposed to be unmanageable. But British soldiers are accustomed
to struggle with difficulties of all kinds in war, and by the time the
Boers had recovered somewhat from their surprise, and, urged by their
leaders, were advancing again to try and recover the lost piece, the
team of oxen were once more working together, and the ponderous gun was
being slowly dragged onward towards the rocky eminence.

It was terribly hard work in the darkness; for the way, after about a
hundred yards or so over level veldt, began to ascend, and blocks of
granite seemed to be constantly rising from the ground to impede the
progress of the oxen.

In spite of all, though, the gun and its limber were dragged on and on,
while in the distance a line of tiny jets of fire kept on spurting out,
showing that the enemy had recovered from the panic and were coming on,
firing as they came, the bullets whizzing over the heads of our men, but
doing no harm.

"Steady! steady! and as quietly as you can," said Lennox in warning
tones, as he kept on directing and encouraging his men. "They are
firing by guesswork.--Ah! that won't do any good," he muttered, for just
as he was speaking Dickenson and his men, who had spread out widely,
began to reply; "it will only show our weakness."

He looked forward again in the direction the oxen were being driven; but
the kopje was invisible, and now he altered his opinion about the firing
of Dickenson's detachment, for he felt that it would let the captain
know what was going on, and bring up support.

He was quite right, for in a very little time Captain Roby had felt his
way to them, learnt the cause of the firing, and carefully covered the
retreat till the intricacies of the rocky ascent put a stop to further
progress in the gloom, and a halt was called till morning.

The rest of the night passed in the midst of a terrible suspense, for
though the Boer firing gradually died out, as if the leaders had at last
awakened to the fact of its being a mere wast