"Oh, they will, of course!" said Denham mockingly. "They'll pick out the best one, containing a nice assortment, and label it, `Reserved for the use of the Natal Light Horse. To wait until called for by Don Quixoto Valentino Morayo and his henchman Sancho Panzo Joeboyo.' I never thought of that." "Let's go and report what we have seen," I said bitterly; and we went and found the Colonel. "Humph!" he said shortly; "unfortunate." That was all. Then the day glided by, with our men always on the alert, their only work being to man the walls and keep a sharp lookout while the horses were driven out to graze; but though the Boers showed in force in different directions, they made no attack. In spite of a false alarm or two, the poor brutes managed to pick up a pretty good feed; though, considering the work they had to do, it was poor and unsustaining as compared to corn. As for the men, they made the best of things; but several knots gathered together trying to allay the desire for different food by the agency of their pipes. However, instead of endeavouring to get accustomed to the food pretty plentifully prepared for their meals--other two horses having to be shot on account of their wounds--some of the men preferred to fast; and it was these men who discussed the probability of the Colonel making a dash again that night, to cut a way through and escape. Sergeant Briggs favoured this idea. "I hope the chief will make another try to-night," he said to Denham and me. "The Boers mean to starve us out; and in another day or two all the fight will be gone out of the poor lads." However, the sun often peeps out on the cloudiest days; and towards evening, just when we were feeling most despondent, Joeboy came up to Denham and me just as we were going up to our old place of observation, glass in hand. As we mounted, it was to see the horses led in, with the guard behind them; the lines of the enemy being descried very distinctly in the horizontal rays of the low-down sun. Denham was using the glass and making comments the while. "There's a famous great gap out yonder," he said, "just to the right of where we saw those unlucky wagons, Val. I will just go and tell some one. The enemy will not be likely to fill it up; and I believe we might go softly that way and make a dash through.--Oh, you disgusting, sybaritish, gluttonous brutes! I always did think the Boers were pigs at eating. Look at their fires all along their lines. Here are we starving, and they're doing nothing but cook and eat--eat--eat." I took the glass and looked at the opening he had noticed, but said nothing, remembering how terrible was our experience on the previous occasion. I saw too--as enviously as my companion, but in silence--how the fires were sending up their clouds of smoke in the clear, calm air all along the line, telling of preparations for the coming meal. "The empty wagons are gone," I said at last.