nd
Pahlandhle were both elderly men of powerful build, the other was a mere
boy. Both seemed to treat the affair as entirely beneath their notice,
and, making a virtue of necessity, submitted to have their arms bound
behind them, in sullen silence, the while the Police troopers were
covering them effectually and at close quarters with their revolvers.
But hardly had this operation been completed than the other, whom they
had left to the last, with a spring and a rush disappeared into the
mist, leaping and zigzagging to dodge the bullets which were fired after
him.

"Here's a howling joke," said Trooper Sketchley. "He isn't touched, and
now he's gone to raise a rescue. Those chaps'll rally like the deuce to
get back their chiefs."

"Will they?" said Dick Selmes, smart, alert, with the tingling sense of
adventure. "Come along then. We'll wheel them back to camp before
there's time for any bother of that sort. The old Commandant'll look
mighty surprised, I'll bet."

So these five hair-brained youngsters started off; shoving their august
prisoners along at a pace which sorely tried the dignity of the latter.
When they gained the lip of the hollow, Sketchley gave a signal to halt.

The mist was all driving back, leaving one side of the hill bare. But
this was by no means as it had been when they came up it. The stones
and bushes, glistening with dew, were now alive with red-ochred forms,
swift-moving, lithe, stealing upward; assegais and guns held ready in
sinewy, eager grip. Then, as the helmets of two careless troopers
showed above the ridge, there was a sudden roaring discharge of
firearms, and the vicious "whigge" overhead showed that the "pot-legs"
and bullets were beginning to fly.

Now these five were in a tight hole. The Kafirs, rallying to the rescue
of their chiefs, were coming on to storm that hill with a fixity of
purpose which left nothing to be desired or to be hoped for. They
reckoned on finding at least fifty men up there, and these were only
five.

"A few more steps, and both chiefs will be shot," sang out Sketchley, in
their own language.

But it seemed to stay the rush not at all. Swarming through the bushes,
they still kept on. In a minute or two they would rush the position.

"Give them a volley!" yelled Dick Selmes.

This was done, but with scant effect.

Slapping in their reloads, the men delivered another, this time with
considerable effect, for it checked the advance. But t