Charge! | Page 8

the same.--There, that'll do, owld lady. I'll make a man of the bhoy, and send him back safe and sound, if some of the raw recruits of the brutal Saxons don't shoot him."
"Good-bye, then. God bless you and protect you, Val!" said Aunt Jenny, with a sob, as she loosened her grip of my neck, and I straightened myself up, feeling my heart swell and the blood bound in my veins, for while my father kept the captain in converse, she, with quivering lips, had breathed words of hope into my ear.
"Listen, Val," she said. "Your father bids me say that you are to watch for your chance, and then make a dash for your liberty. Gallop to Echo Nek, and you will find Joeboy waiting there with a rifle and cartridges. But you must not come back here. Joeboy will bring a letter."
My heart was bounding with hope, and I felt ready for anything just then, as the captain gave the orders "Mount!" and then "Forward!" But the next minute my spirits sank into the darkness of misery. For what had Aunt Jenny said? Joeboy would be waiting at Echo Nek with a rifle and cartridges. Yes; but poor Joeboy had taken flight at the appearance of the Boers, and fled for his liberty, in the belief that they had come for him.
CHAPTER FOUR.
WAITING FOR MY CHANCE.
I rode on painfully as regarded my wrists; for above them my arms throbbed and burned as if the veins were distended almost to bursting-point, while my hands grew gradually cold and numb, and then became insensible as so much lead. The physical pain, however, was nothing to what I felt mentally. Only an hour or two before I was leading that calm, happy home-life, without a trouble beyond some petty disappointment in the garden or farm or during one of the hunting or shooting expeditions with Joeboy to carry my game; and now a lightning-like stroke seemed to have descended to end my idyllic boy-life and make me a man full of suffering, and with a future which I abhorred.
"No," I argued, "I must escape, even if they do send a shower of bullets to bring me down." I did not believe much in the vaunted powers of the Boers with the rifle. I knew that they could shoot well, but no better than my father and his two pupils, meaning Bob and myself; and I felt that we should have been very doubtful about bringing down a man going at full gallop, even in the brightest daylight; and I meant to make my venture in the dusk of the evening or after dark if only my captors would continue their journey then. Once well started, and my rein free of the man who held it buckled to his saddle-bow, I had no fear at all, for I was sure that in a straight race there was not a Boer amongst them who could overtake me, they being heavy, middle-aged men, while I was young and light, quite at home in the saddle, and Sandho as much at home with me, upon his back. Arms? I could do without them. Reins? I needed none, if only free of the one which held me to my left-hand guard; for an extra pressure of either leg would send my beautiful little Australian horse in the direction I wished to turn, while a word of encouragement would send him on like the wind, and an order sharply uttered check him even if at full speed.
I had had Sandho four years, mounting him as soon as he was strong enough to bear me, and ever since we seemed to have been companions more than master and servant. We had played together; I had hunted him, and he had hunted me--finding me, too, when I hid from him; and he answered when out grazing on the veldt with a cheery neigh before galloping to meet me. Why, there had been times when we had both lain down to sleep together on the distant plains, my head resting on his glossy neck; so, now that he was bearing me along, comparatively helpless, and I felt his elastic, springy form beneath me, I was ashamed of my despair, convinced that if I gave the word he would snap that rein at the first bound, and bear me safely away.
I made up my mind that if I could defer my attempt till it was dark I should be safe. If, however, I were obliged to venture in daylight, I would make my dash by some rocky pass or kopje on the way, where Sandho would easily leave the Boers' horses behind, he being almost as sure-footed as a goat.
The captain drew rein a little, so that I came alongside during