Charge! | Page 8

slowly; "and bear up like a
man."
That was all, and he turned away.
The next moment Bob was clinging to my arm.
"O Val! O Val! O Val!" he cried in a choking voice, and then he
dropped back, poor boy, for he could say no more.
"Be sharp there and get it done, me bhoy," said the captain. "Ye can say
good-bye to the owld woman; but lave the cat and the dogs till ye come
back."
"Are you going to march at once?" said my father as Aunt Jenny came
to my side, and I gripped my saddle and bent down for her to put her
arms round my neck.
"Sor, ye see that I am," said the captain.
"But you and your men will take something to eat and drink?"
"Something to send them asleep?" said the captain suspiciously. "I'm
thinkin' they can last till we get back to Drak Pass, where there's a
shtore. I'm obleeged to ye all 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