As they fell back the disorder seemed to become a rout; but Colonel Lindley had grown, through a sharp lesson or two, pretty watchful and ready to meet manoeuvre with manoeuvre. He saw almost directly that the enemy were overdoing their retreat; and he acted accordingly. Suspecting that it was a feint, he held his mounted troops in hand, and then made them fall back upon the village. It was none too soon, his men being just in time to fall on the flank of one of the other two commandos, whose leaders had only waited till the first had drawn the British force well out of their entrenchments before one attacked from the east, and the other drove back the defenders of the ford and crossed at once, but only to bring themselves well under the attention of their own captured gun on the kopje, its shells playing havoc amongst them, while the men of the colonel's regiment stood fast in their entrenchments. The result was that in less than an hour the last two commandos retired in disorder and with heavy loss. "There," said Lennox as the events of the day were being discussed after the mess dinner, "you see, Bob, it doesn't do to trust the Boers." "Pooh!" replied the young officer. "There are Boers and Boers, and one must trust them when they supply the larder. Good-luck to our lot, I say, and may they bring in another big supply. If they don't, we shall have to begin on those quadrupedal locomotives of horn, gristle, and skin they call spans. Ugh! how I do loathe trek ox!" "Talking of that," said Lennox, "the cornet and his men ought to have been off to-night." "Why?" said Dickenson, staring. "Why? Because the enemy will be in such a state of confusion after the check they had to-day." "To be sure; let's go and tell them so." "I was nearly suggesting it to the colonel, but he would only have given me one of his looks. You know." "Yes; make you feel as if you're nine or ten, even if he hadn't sarcastically hinted that you had not been asked for your advice. But I say, Drew, old fellow, I think you're right, and if Blackbeard thinks it would be best he'll go to the old man like a shot. No bashfulness in him." Without further debate the two young men made their way across the market-square to the wagon where the Boers' dim lantern was swinging, passing two sentries on the way. "Not much need for a light," observed Dickenson; "one might smell one's way to their den. Hang it all! if tobacco's poison those fellows ought to have been killed long ago." The cornet was seated on the wagon-box, with his legs inside, talking in a low tone to his fellows who shared the wagon with him, and so intent that he did not hear the young officers' approach till Lennox spoke, when he sprang forward into the wagon, and his companions began to climb out at the back. "Why, what's the matter with you?" said Dickenson laughingly as he stepped up and looked in. "Think some of your friends were coming to fetch you?"