With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born Leader, G. A. Henty [best novels to read .TXT] 📗

the nearest point of the donga was thickly strewn with boulders, with bushes growing between them. The lads had all shifted their position to this side.

"Don't open fire till I give the order," Chris said quietly. "We have got them now."

Except for a slight movement of the bushes, it would not have been known that the Boers had left the donga. Once or twice Capper and Carmichael caught a momentary glimpse of one of them, but held their fire, as Chris had said.

"Let them come within twenty yards, then both fire at once, whether you catch a glimpse of them or not. Thinking that your rifles are discharged, they will all jump up and make a rush. Then it will be our turn."

[Image: "BOTH RIFLES CRACKED AT ONCE."]

Presently a man's head was seen peering round a rock at about the right distance. Both the rifles cracked at once, and a Boer fell prone on the ground beyond his shelter. At the same moment there was a shout, and his comrades all sprang to their feet and rushed forward. A volley from the whole of the scouts flashed out. Twelve of the Boers fell, the others leapt back behind their shelters, and in turn opened fire.

"Keep in shelter!" Chris shouted. "They know now that we are two to their one, and will soon be making off."

The combatants were so close to each other that neither dared expose shoulder or head to take aim, and after the first shots fired at the Boers all remained quiet. Chris waited for three or four minutes, and then told four of the lads who were in the best shelter to crawl back, mount their horses, and ride out down the other side of the slope, and, after making a slight circuit, to gallop straight at the Boers' horses.

"The fellows may be some distance away already," he said, "as they may have slipped off directly they discharged their rifles. In any case there is no time to be lost in getting hold of their ponies, or at any rate in driving them off."

As two or three minutes again passed without a shot being fired by the Boers, Chris was in the act of calling off half the troop to watch the donga and fire at the Boers if they saw them running past the exposed points, when at this moment he heard the horses returning, and directly afterwards one of the lads he had sent off ran up to him.

"There are a whole lot of them coming round the other side," he said, "sixty or seventy of them at least. Some distance behind I can see a lot of cattle and waggons. I suppose they were making for home when they heard the firing." Just at this moment two or three shots rang out, telling that the surviving Boers were seen running down the donga.

"Never mind them," Chris shouted; "we are going to be attacked by a big party. Put down your rifles all of you, and pile the stones on the crest, so as to make a shelter, as quickly as you can. We shall have a few minutes. Those who are coming up can't know yet what the firing means." He ran up to the top. "They are not more than six or seven hundred yards away," he said, "and it would be better to fight it out here than to take to our horses. Some of us would certainly not get off without a bullet. You need not mind showing yourselves when they come up. They won't be able to make out what we are."

The Boers, indeed, reined in their ponies when they saw Chris appear on the brow of the eminence, and as a preliminary some of them rode off in both directions and endeavoured to ascertain the position. Those on the right soon caught sight of the clump of horses.

"They will soon know all about it," Chris said, as two of them galloped off. "We may as well teach them to keep their distance. Take your places behind rocks, and then open a sharp fire with your magazines. They cannot know how many of us there are here. Now, are you all ready? Yes? Well, then, set to work!"

In a moment an almost incessant rattle of musketry broke out upon the astounded Boers, who, turning their horses, scattered at full gallop to escape the hail of bullets; but more than a dozen had fallen before they were beyond the range of the Mausers and were fully two thousand yards away.

"I don't think we need stop," Chris said. "Fill up your magazines again, and then make for the horses." Directly the first party of Boers had been seen, Jack and Japhet had set to work taking down and rolling up the tents and loading the spare horses.

"Jump up," Chris said to them, "we are off. Mind you keep well with us. Now," he went on, as they rode off in a body, "we will do a little cattle raiding on our own account. Make for them, lads!"

With a shout they rode off at full gallop towards the great herd of cattle. As they approached, the Kaffirs who were driving them fled. Separating as they rode, waving their hats and shouting at the top of their voices, the lads dashed at the herd, who at once turned and went off at a rate that would have astonished animals accustomed only to small pastures and other enclosures.

"Don't press them too much," Chris had ordered before the band separated, "or they will break down. Listen for my whistle; when you hear it, Field, Willesden, Harris, and Bryan will follow up the herd with the Kaffirs and keep them moving, the rest will dismount, make their horses lie down, and open fire. That narrow valley we passed through yesterday afternoon will do to make a stand. It is about five miles away, head the cattle for it. The Boers won't be far behind us when we get there."

The enemy indeed had not noticed them leave the little kopje, as they were hidden by a slight fall in the ground where they descended, and it was not until they observed a commotion among the cattle that they perceived what had happened. Then, furious not only at the loss they had suffered, but at seeing their booty driven away, they mounted and pursued in hot haste. But the party had obtained a start of fully a mile, and the valley was reached by the fugitives while the Boers were still half that distance in their rear. Chris rode along until he came to a narrow and defensible point; the horses were taken a hundred yards on and made to lie down, and he and his sixteen companions then ran back and took up their positions among the rocks on each side of the track and the slopes above it.