"We may find even that will not be enough. The orders are very strict now. Besides, if we did not come back the guard would report us missing, and then there'd be great excitement at once." "What would you do, then?" he asked. "Take a lesson out of that Irishman's book." "Knock two or three sentries on the head with a stone?" "No, no," I cried, laughing. "Get a couple of reins, tie them together, and then slide down from the wall." "Good!" exclaimed Denham; and, after a pause: "Better! Yes, that will do. Start from the far corner?" "No, from just up here where Joeboy arranged the stones. We can tie up to one of those big ones that you stand on to look over. You feel strong enough to slide down?--it isn't far." "Oh yes." "Then, once on the ground, we can crawl away. That's how I mean to go all along." "What about the tethering-ropes?" "We'll go and have a look at our horses towards evening, slip the coils over our shoulders, and bring them away. No one will interfere." "Val," he cried, "you ought to be a commissioned officer." "I don't want to be," I said, laughing. "I want the war to be over, and to be able to find my people, and settle down again in peace. This fighting goes against the grain with me." "But you always seem to like it, and fight like a fury when we're in for it." "I suppose it's my nature," I said; "but I don't like it any the better." We said no more, but waited anxiously in the hope that Joeboy would return, and waited in vain, the time gliding by, some hours being passed in sleep, till we were suddenly aroused by firing. There were two or three fits of excitement in the course of the afternoon, and a smart exchange of shots which at one time threatened to develop into a regular attempt to assault the fort; but it died out at last, direct attack of entrenchments not being in accord with the Boers' ideas of fighting. It is too dangerous for men who like to be safely in hiding and to bring down their enemies as if they were wild beasts of the veldt. No Joeboy appeared, and in the dusk of evening we went across the yard, had a good look at our horses, stopped patting and caressing them for some time, then went back to the hospital unquestioned and, I believe, unseen, with the coils of raw-hide rope. From that time everything seemed to me so delightfully easy that it prognosticated certain success. The doctor came at dusk and had a chat; then the Sergeant looked us up to tell us that he had seen nothing of Joeboy, but that the butcher told him he had missed some strips of beef hung up in the sun to make biltong, and that he believed the black had taken them. "Why?" I asked sharply. "Because he was so fond of eating; and he said the black would be found curled up amongst the stones somewhere in the kopje among the baboons, sleeping off his feed."