But, as the troops advanced, it appeared that a manoeuvre of Lyle's had answered his purpose for the present. To the extreme right, where a road cut the ridge in two, he had placed several men, who were only to affect concealment. It was to this point that the attention of the advance-guard was evidently directed, for, instead of making a forward movement, they took an oblique path, intent on attacking the detached party to their left, who were fully prepared to retreat within a narrow gorge, capable of containing some twenty men, and defended by a gun placed at the opening. Poor Gray was guiltless of running out his piece of ordnance, as Lyle imagined--the error lay with a less practised hand, but the circumstance turned the fortune of the hour; for the Boers, misled by the diagonal march of the soldiers, were somewhat off their guard, and, in imagined security, watched the forces of the Government. It was curious and painful to Gray to hear the cool way in which the deserters of the party made their observations on the scene before them. "Ha!" said one, who knelt beside him, gazing intently through a fissure in the rock, "they have got up a company of the old Ninety --th; that rascal Zoonah said they were to remain in garrison."--An oath or two filled the space--"they know this part of the country."--"Matthews and Wilton, and you, Jem Blaine, you belonged to it."--"How they march!" said Jem Blaine; "they are as fresh as when I saw them at drill at Graham's Town;"--and the last oath was uttered heartily, and in thorough good humour, as a strange touch of pride in his old corps brought the red colour to his hard brown cheek. "By --, there's my old captain, Frankfort. Well done, grenadiers; well done, old fellows--step out. Look sharp, Frankfort. Oh! I see he is a staff man. God bless you, old fellow; if you had not been on leave when I had my last lark, I should have been marching with you now. You would have recommended me to mercy;" and then Jem Blaine sat down, turned his back upon the fissure, and would look no more. Standing up, leaning on his long roer, his hat at his feet, and great drops of perspiration on his broad forehead, Vander Roey followed the troops with his eye. The mist had not yet quite cleared off, but he could distinguish the rear of the division. He saw that the force was small, but well chosen, but he said nothing. "They have no artillery," said a young Boer. Vander Roey made no reply, but watched his wife, who was looking through a telescope beyond the division. In another moment Madame Vander Roey exclaimed, "They have artillery; I see a gun advancing." She handed the telescope to her husband.