His officers were present, and Drew Lennox and Bob Dickenson exchanged glances at the word "gentlemen," for the embassy looked like anything but that; and they departed in an insolent, braggart way, and very soon after began to shoot, using up a great many cartridges, but doing very little harm. Then, growing weary, they gave up, and the colonel set one part of his men to work with the spade till dark, making rifle-pit and trench; while as soon as it was dark he despatched fully half of his force to occupy the precipitous mound at the back of the village, making a natural stronghold which he intended to connect with the camp by means of stone walls the next day, having a shrewd notion that if he did not the Boers would, for the mound commanded the place, and would soon make it untenable. Captain Roby's company and another were sent to this duty, and the men were carefully posted--Lennox and Dickenson on the highest part, which was naturally the most windy and cold. Their orders, which they conveyed to the men, were to keep the strictest lookout, though the enemy had retired far enough away; for the Boers had at that early period of the war already acquired the credit of being slim and clever at ambush and night attack. But the night was well advanced, and the two friends, after visiting post after post, were sitting huddled up in their greatcoats, longing for hot coffee or cigarettes, and feeling obliged to rub their sleepy and tired eyes from time to time, weary as they were with straining to see danger creeping up over the black, dark veldt, but straining in vain. "B-r-r-r! What humbug it is to call this Africa!" growled Dickenson. "What do you mean?" replied Lennox. "Mean? Why, it's so cold. Where's your blazing heat and your sand? One might be at the North Pole. Ow! don't do that." He started violently, for Lennox had suddenly stolen out a hand and pinched his arm sharply. "Quiet! Listen!" Dickenson drew his breath hard and strained his ears instead of his eyes. "Well? Can't hear anything." "Hist! Listen again." There was a pause. "Hear anything?" "Yes; but I don't know what it is," said Dickenson, laying a hand behind one ear and leaning forward with his head on one side. "What does it sound like?" "Something like a heavy wagon coming along a road with its wheels muffled." "Heavy wagon drawn by oxen?" "Yes," replied Dickenson. "Mightn't it be a big gun?" "It might," said Dickenson dubiously; "but what, could a big gun be doing out there on the open veldt?" "Lying still in its carriage, and letting itself be drawn to the place where it was to be mounted." "Yes, of course it might be; but it couldn't." "Why not? Bob, old fellow," whispered Lennox in an excited whisper, "I believe the Boers are stealing a march upon us." "Well, they won't, because we're on the watch. But out with it: what is it you think?" "They don't know that we are occupying the kopje to-night." "No; we came after it was dark."