It came more quickly than they expected; for, after a few moments of intense strain, the barrel was suddenly depressed, till through the clear air the watchers distinctly saw a tiny hole and nothing more. Then all at once the sun glinted from something else--a something that flashed brightly for one instant, and was then obscured by smoke--the smoke that darted from the little, just perceptible orifice of the small-bore Mauser and that which shot out from four British rifles, to combine into one slowly rising cloud; while as the commingled reports of five rifles, friendly and inimical, died away, to the surprise of Dickenson and his men they saw the figure of a big swarthy Boer staggering towards them with both hands pressed to his face. The next moment he was lying just in front of his hiding-place, stretched out-- dead. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. SAFE AT LAST. "Ha!" ejaculated Dickenson, with a sigh of relief, and he turned away to creep to where Lennox lay, finding him still plunged in the same state of stupor. "One ought to lay him in the shade," he thought; but there was very little that he could do beyond drawing a few pieces of the thorn bush together to hang over his face. He then took out his handkerchief to lay over the bush, but hastily snatched it away again. "Bah!" he muttered. "It's like making a white bull's-eye for them to fire at." Then he crept back to his position, with the bullets still whizzing overhead or striking up the dust, and he almost wondered that no one had been hit. "I hope Mr Lennox is better, sir," said the sergeant respectfully. "I see no difference, sergeant. But what does that mean?" "What we used to call `stalking horse,' sir, down in the Essex marshes. Creeping up under the shelter of their mounts." "Then they are getting nearer?" "Yes, sir. Don't you think we might begin to pay them back? We could hit their ponies if we couldn't hit them." "Yes, sergeant, soon," replied the young officer, carefully scanning the enemy's approach; "but I think I'd let them get a hundred yards, or even two, nearer before we begin. The business is simplified." "Is it, sir?" "I mean, there's no question of retreating now that the ponies are gone. It's either fight to the last, or surrender." "You mean, sir, that there were three things to do?" "Yes; and now it's one of two." "Isn't it only one, sir? I think the lads feel as I do, right-down savage, and ready to fight to the last." "Very well," said Dickenson; "then we'll fight to the last."