"Yes, yes," said Moriarty, with a forced laugh; "his tongue will soon be still. Putt them in the impty wagon, and bind their legs too. Then put four men over them as guards. You'll answer for them, Cornet." The grim looks of the two speakers and the horrible nature of their words, which meant a horrible death, ought to have sent a chill through me; but just then I was so excited, so hot with rage against the cowardly wretch who had struck my friend, that I did not feel the slightest fear as to my fate; and, obeying the order to march, I walked beside Denham with my head as erect as his, till we were by the tail of a great empty wagon, into which two of the Boers scrambled so as to seize us by the pinioned arms, causing great pain, as they stooped, and then dragged us in as if we had been sacks of corn, and then let us down. "Look here," said my captor, speaking from the tail-end of the wagon, "there are four men on duty with rifles, and their orders are to shoot you both through the head if you try to escape. Now you know." While he was speaking one of the men who had dragged us in reached out his hand for a lantern, which he took and hung from a hook in the middle of the tilt. Then he and his companion dropped down from the end of the dimly-lit wagon, and we were alone for a few moments. But the two men who had left us returned directly with two more reins and set to work binding our ankles together as tightly as they could. "There," said one of them, in Dutch, as soon as they had finished, "we can see you well from outside, and you know what will come if you try to get away." Then we were alone again, and as the curtain of stout canvas at the end ceased to vibrate, Denham as he lay back began to laugh merrily. "Denham!" I cried. "I can't help it, old chap," he said. "It's very horrible, but there's a comic side to it. Blows hit terribly hard." "Yes, the coward!" I cried passionately, "to strike you like that!" "I wasn't thinking of that, old chap," he replied. "Yes, that was as nasty a thing as the savage could do; but I was thinking of how hard you can hit a sensitive man with your tongue." "What do you mean?" I said. "Moriarty! Why, I spoke quite quietly, but if I had given him a cut across the face from the left shoulder with my sabre, which cuts like a razor, it wouldn't have hurt the brute half as much." "Don't--don't talk about the business," I said bitterly. "Why not? I'm just in the condition that makes my tongue run. But I say, old chap, we've made a pretty mess of our scheme. Never told a soul what we were going to do, so we can't get any help." "And left a hanging rope to show our people that we have run away and deserted them in their terrible strait."