here we had passed the night, and then up the pass again for a
couple of hundred yards to where the track had borne off a little to the
right, but where we had kept on through the mist perfectly straight,
with nearly fatal results.

We looked anxiously up now as we turned off into the proper track, fully
expecting to see outposts of the Boers who had fired as we crossed the
head; but none were visible. So we began to descend as rapidly as we
could, but only at a walk, for the track was terribly rough.

It was only very gradually that the valley began to open out, our way at
times being along the stony bed of a mountain torrent; while right and
left the sides of what looked like a tremendous rift in the mountain,
split open in some terrific convulsion of nature, towered up.

We went along cheerily, for every yard carried us farther from risk of
capture by the Boers; and once we were well clear of the pass a couple
of days would, I felt sure, place us safely in the land of my countrymen
with whom the Boers were at war.

"How soon shall we stop and have breakfast, Joeboy?" I said as we were
passing through a perfect chaos of great stones which now hemmed us in
front and back. "No fear of seeing any Boers now."

The words had hardly left my lips when Sandho stopped short, and uttered
a sharp challenging neigh, which was answered from some distance in
front; and directly after, as I turned my horse sharply to get under the
cover of a huge block we had just passed, there came the loud clattering
of hoofs and a shout, as a party of some five-and-twenty well-mounted
horsemen cantered out to bar the way.

"Then they are there," I muttered as I swung Sandho round again. Joeboy
laid his left hand on the saddle, and away we cantered forward to
circumvent, if possible, the party in front whose horse had answered
Sandho's challenge.

The men behind yelled to us to stop. We paid no heed, but, regardless
of the stones, cantered on, Joeboy taking them at a stride in company
with Sandho's bounds.

The next minute I was looking upon fully twenty mounted riflemen right
across our path, and a glance right and left showed me that any attempt
to get round them would be an act of madness, for no horse could pass.

I turned in my saddle and looked back, to find that the party there were
closing in upon us; and for a moment I felt ready to turn Sandho and go
at them at full gallop, so as to try and cut my way through. I saw,
howe