either a
prisoner or dead."

"Not a bit of it," he replied; "but it wasn't the Boers' fault. Just
look at my head."

"I was looking," I said, for a closely-folded handkerchief was tied
diagonally across his forehead. "Is the cut deep?"

"Deep? No," he replied. "Deep as the beast could make it--that is, to
the bone. I say, what a blessing it is to have a thick skull! My old
schoolmaster used to tell me I was a blockhead, and I thought he was
wrong; but he was right enough, or I shouldn't be here."

"The loss is bad enough without that," I replied.

"Horrible; but they've paid dearly for it," he said. "But I say, what
about rations? We can't starve."

I told him what I had overheard during the officers' talk with the
Sergeant.

"Yes," said Denham peevishly; "but that means waiting till to-morrow
morning. We must make a sally and get something."

"I wish we could," I said, for now that my mind was at rest I felt
ravenously hungry. "Hullo! what's going on there?"

Denham turned sharply, and, to our astonishment, Sergeant Briggs was
coming from the gate leading half-a-dozen men stripped to shirt and
breeches, carrying in half-quarters of some newly-killed animal.

"Why, hullo!" I cried, "what luck! They've found and been slaughtering
an ox."

"Yes," said Denham dryly, "and there's more meat out yonder. We shan't
starve. I'd forgotten."

"Forgotten! Forgotten what?"

"It isn't beef," he said quietly. "It's big antelope."

"What! eland?" I cried joyously.

"No; the big, solid-hoofed antelope that eats like nylghau or quagga."

"What do you mean?" I said wonderingly, as I mentally ran over all the
varieties of antelope I had seen away on the veldt.

"The big sort with iron soles to their hoofs. Two poor brutes, bleeding
to death, dropped about a hundred yards away as we came in last night."

"Horse!" I exclaimed. "Ugh!"

"Oh yes, it's all very well to say `Ugh!' old proud stomach; but I feel
ready to sit down to equine sirloin and enjoy it. Why shouldn't horse
be as good as ox or any of the antelopes of the veldt? You wouldn't
turn up your nose at any of them."

"But horse!" I said. "It seems so--so--so--"

"So what? Oh, my grandmother! There isn't a more dainty feeder than a
horse. Why, he won't even drink dirty water unless he's pretty well
choking with thirst. Horse? Why, I wouldn't refuse a well-cooked bit
of the toughest old moke that ever dragged a cart."

"But wh