"`Then I leave you.' And with that I slipped away, but turned on my tracks and come back softly to peer at him. He were still standing behin' the tree, looking away off at the soldiers, but his coat were buttoned up tight to his throat I went up to him tip-toe and touched him on the soldier, and he gave a low cry and jumped aside with his fists up. When he seed who it were, the tears came into his eyes. "`Abe Pike,' he sed, tremblin', `that's a mean trick to play on a boy--a mean dirty trick.' "I allow it were mean, but I thought I'd skeer him into taking off that red rag. Then I give it up. `Come on,' I sed, `foller me; stop when I stop, run when I run, and keep quiet.' "So we sot off tenderly through the bush, and we hadn't gone mor'n fifty paces when I smelt the Kaffirs. I sank down; he did, too, and I peered through the shadders. A sound came to us--the sound of naked feet, of moving branches--and I knew the pass were full of men. "He touched me on the arm as the bugle call to `fall in' rang along into the still pass, ekering as it went from side to side. "I put my mouth to his ear to tell him the Kaffirs were swarming, and that we could not go on, but must go up the ridge and work round to the troops. "`What are the Kaffirs doing?' he sed. "`They are making an ambush.' "`And the General doesn't know?' "`No, sonny, he doesn't.' "`And they'll march in and be stabbed,' he whispered, with his eyes round and staring. "`Oh, they'll fight their way out,' I sed. `Come on after me.' "`Good-bye,' he said, sitting down. `You go on--I'm tired.' "`I'll carry you, little chap,' says I, and I picked him up, but he was heavy for his size, and the bush was thick, and more than that, he kicked. "So I sot him down, and I yeard a Kaffir calling out to his friends to know what the noise was. I motioned to him to come, but he sot there, with his face white, and shook his head; then he altered his mind. `Go on,' he said, `I'll foller--go quick!' So I sot off up the ridge through the wood, slipping from tree to tree, thinking he were coming, when all of a sudden outer the wood, ringing out clear and loud, a bugle sounded the alarm. I looked round and the boy were not there. I ran back, and saw him with the bugle to his lips, and his cheeks swelling as he blew another blast. I can hear it now--the call of that little chap, with the muttered cries of the Kaffirs, and the sound of their naked feet running, as they came up. "`You little devil,' I yelled; `they'll kill you. Run!' "He gave me one look over his shoulder, and he put his life into that last blow. As the last note went swinging away, there came an answering note from the regiment--to form square. "`That'll be Jimmy,' he said. And the next minnit an assegai struck him on the neck, and he fell into my arms." Abe stopped, and looked away. "What, then?" I said, touching him on the shoulder. "I don't know, sonny, what happened, till I laid him down afore the General."