"I say `Oh yes.' But I didn't mean to snub one of my smartest officers.--Well, Moray, this is another reason for giving you your stripes. Work away, my lad, and master all your drill. I would promote you directly; but it would seem too much like favouritism in the eyes of your seniors. You may rest assured that I am not forgetting you." "I am quite satisfied, sir," I said warmly. "Every one treats me more as a friend than as the latest recruit." "I'm glad of it, and that Mr Denham here seems to look upon you as a companion--a brother-in-arms, I ought to say." "Yet I've a lot of trouble with him, sir," said Denham mockingly. "He's a very impudent young brother-in-arms sometimes." The Colonel made no reply, but took his field-glass from its case, and sat down on the highest point of the old fortress, while he proceeded carefully to examine the country round, dropping a word or two about his observations from time to time. "The Boers seem as if they mean to stop," he said softly, and there was a pause as he swept the horizon with his glass. "A good twelve hundred men if there's one," then came, and he had another good long look. "Let it stand at twelve hundred," he muttered; "but I believe there are more." There was another pause. "Take some grass to keep all those horses," he muttered--"that is, if they stay." Another pause. "Be next door to madness to try to cut our way through them." "Yes, sir," said Denham. "I beg your pardon, Mr Denham," said the Colonel, lowering his glass to look at my companion. "Beg pardon, sir; I thought you spoke," replied Denham, and he cocked his eye comically at me as the Colonel renewed his observations. "They evidently mean to stay; and if we made a rush for it, every man would be down upon his chest delivering such a deadly fire as I dare not expose my poor, fellows to." "No, sir," said Denham to me silently--that is to say, he made a round "O" with his mouth, and then shaped the word "sir" as one would in trying to speak to a deaf and dumb person. "They'd empty half our saddles, and kill no end of horses," continued the Colonel, as he kept on sweeping the plain with his glass. There was a long pause now; and then, still speaking in the same low, distinct voice, and without doubt under the impression that he was only expressing his thoughts in silence: "That's it," he said at last, as if he had quite come to a decision as to the course he must pursue. "In the dark. A quiet walk till we are discovered by their outposts, and then gallop and get through them. Say to-morrow night, when the horses are well rested." Another pause, during which Denham shook his head violently. Then: "No. The poor horses would be hungry. It will have to be to-night. Let me see; there is no moon. Yes, it must be to-night."