Bob Dickenson's "No!" was emphatic enough for anything, and brought the conversation between the two young men to an end; for it was close upon the time for the mess dinner, which, whatever its shortcomings, as Bob Dickenson said, was jolly punctual, even if there was no tablecloth. So they descended from where they had perched themselves close up to the big gun, where their commanding position gave them the opportunity for making a wide sweep round over the karoo, taking in, too, the wooded course of the river and the open country beyond in the possession of the Boers. But they had seen no sign of an enemy or grazing horse; though they well knew that if a company of their men set off in any direction, before they had gone a quarter of a mile they would be pelted with bullets by an unseen foe. They had seen the walls and rifle-pits which guarded the great gun so often that they hardly took their attention. All the same, though, soldier-like, Drew Lennox could not help thinking how naturally strong the kopje was, how easy it would be for two or three companies of infantry to hold it against a force of ten times their number, and what tremendous advantages the Boers had possessed in the nature of their country. For they had only had to sit down behind the natural fortifications and set an enemy at defiance. "It's our turn now," Lennox said to himself, "and we could laugh at them for months if only we had a supply of food." "Let's try this way," said Dickenson, bearing off to his left. "What for? It's five times as hard as the regular track, and precipitous." "Not so bad but what we can do it. We can let one another down if we come to one of the wall-like bits too big to jump." "But it's labour for nothing. Only make you more hungry," added Lennox, with a laugh. "Never mind; I want to make sure that an enemy could not steal up in the dark and surprise the men in charge of the gun. I'm always thinking that the Boers will steal a march on us and take it some day." "You might save yourself the trouble as far as the climbing up is concerned. This is the worst bit; but they could do it, I feel sure, if our sentries were lax. I don't think they'd get by them, though." "Well, let's have a good look what it is like, now all the crags are lit up." They were lit up in a most wonderful way by the sun, which was just about to dip below the horizon, and turned every lightning-shivered mass of tumbled-together rock into a glowing state, making it look as if it was red-hot, while the rifts and cracks which had been formed here and there were lit up so that their generally dark depths could be searched by the eye. "Do you know what this place looks like?" said Dickenson. "The roughest spot in the world," replied Drew as he lowered himself down a perpendicular, precipitous bit which necessitated his hanging by his hands, and then dropping four or five feet.