I caught at it with a cry of eager joy, and began to carefully dust away every particle of sand that clung to it before slipping on the belt, forgetting the aching pains in my wrists and left leg, as something like a glow of confidence ran through me. Then came back the thought of home, with its smiling fields, orchard, and garden around the house we had raised upon the land won from the wilderness; and the thought that I was to be exiled from it all in consequence of this war; and the injustice of the Boers raised a spirit of anger against them which helped me to pull myself together and frowningly resolve to prove myself a man. "Action, action," I muttered. "I should have liked to go back and see them all again; but I must begin at once, before I am taken. What would they do with me?" I said aloud; and a glance at Joeboy's face showed me that, awkward though he was at speaking, he comprehended every word I had said. "Big Boss Boer," he said, nodding, "say Boss Val come fight. No Boss Val fight? _Whish, whish, whish, crack, cruck_!" He went through the movement of one wielding a bullock-lash, and imitated the sound it made through the air and the loud cracking when it struck home upon quivering flesh. Then he went on, "Boss Val no fight now! _Bang, bang_!" "Flog me the first time I refuse, Joeboy, and shoot me the next time." "Um." "Well, then, we will not give them the chance." Joeboy shook his head violently. "What Joeboy do now, Boss?" "Rub my wrists, Joeboy," I said, stripping up my sleeves and showing him their bruised state and my swollen arms. He understood why they were so, and took first one and then the other in his big soft grey palms, to mould and knead and rub them with untiring patience for long enough, the effect being pleasurable in the extreme. But I checked him when he was in the midst of it, and pointed to my leg. "Boer tie up leg?" he said wonderingly. I explained what was wrong, and he knelt before me, carefully removing my laced-up boot, and giving me sickening pain as he drew off my coarse home-knitted stocking, to lay bare the wrenched and swollen foot and ankle. "Um!" he said. "Boss Val come to water." He lifted me to the edge of the stream as easily as if I had been a child, and when I sat down, carefully bathed the joint for fully half-an-hour, dried it by pouring sand over it again and again, and then as tenderly as a woman replaced stocking and boot, which latter he laced very loosely. "Boss Val go one leg when off Sandho." "Yes, Joeboy," I said; "but it will soon get better." "Um!" he said, and he looked at me inquiringly, as if for orders. "Now we must be off, Joeboy, before the Boers hunt me out."