nsitory flame for the one bit of
detail on a blue hill-side, was an unpleasant warning that we two on
ours were a target in ourselves. But Raffles paid no attention to
their fire; he was pointing downward through the bushes to where
Corporal Connal stood with his back to us, shooing a last charger out
of the mouth of the donga towards the Boer trenches.

"That's his third," whispered Raffles, "but it's the first I've seen
distinctly, for he waited for the blind spot before the dawn. It's
enough to land him, I fancy, but we mustn't lose time. Are you ready
for a creep?"

I stretched myself, and said I was; but I devoutly wished it was not
quite so early in the morning.

"Like cats, then, till he hears, and then into him for all we're worth.
He's stowed his iron safe away, but he mustn't have time even to feel
for it. You take his left arm, Bunny, and hang on to that like a
ferret, and I'll do the rest. Ready? Then now!"

And in less time than it would take to tell, we were over the lip of
the donga and had fallen upon the fellow before he could turn his head;
nevertheless, for a few instants he fought like a wild beast, striking,
kicking, and swinging me off my feet as I obeyed my instructions to the
letter, and stuck to his left like a leech. But he soon gave that up,
panting and blaspheming, demanded explanations in his hybrid tongue
that had half a brogue and half a burr. What were we doing? What had
he done? Raffles at his back, with his right wrist twisted round and
pinned into the small of it, soon told him that, and I think the words
must have been the first intimation that he had as to who his
assailants were.

"So it's you two!" he cried, and a light broke over him. He was no
longer trying to shake us off, and now he dropped his curses also, and
stood chuckling to himself instead. "Well," he went on, "you're bloody
liars both, but I know something else that you are, so you'd better let
go."

A coldness ran through me, and I never saw Raffles so taken aback.
His grip must have relaxed for a fraction of time, for our captive
broke out in a fresh and desperate struggle, but now we pinned him
tighter than ever, and soon I saw him turning green and yellow with the
pain.

"You're breaking my wrist!" he yelled at last.

"Then stand still and tell us who we are."

And he stood still and told us our real names. But Raffles insisted on
hearing how he had found us out, and smiled as though he ha