l this? Didn't I tell ye to loy still and slape till it was
time to start? Why, ye blundering, thick-headed idiots, you have made
enough noise to rouse the Englanders."

Denham pressed my heel now so that it was painful; but I did not stir,
only listened to the grumbling apology of the two men.

"Don't go to sleep again," said the abusing voice. "We start in an
hour, if you haven't put the enemy on the alert."

Just then the light was softened, for the door of the lantern was closed
and the fastening clicked.

Then I felt that all was over, for the man on my left suddenly started
up and seized me by the arm.

"Open that lantern again, Captain Moriarty," he cried. "I want to see
who this is we've got here."

"Yes," said another voice; "two of them. I'll swear they weren't here
when we lay down."

CHAPTER FORTY TWO.

IN THE TRAP.

If either Denham or I had felt the slightest disposition to run, it was
checked by the brotherly feeling that one could not escape without the
other; but even if we had made the attempt it would have been
impossible, for the words uttered by the big Boer at my side acted like
the application of a spark to a keg of gunpowder. In an instant there
was an explosion. Men leaped to their feet, rifle in hand; there was a
roar of voices; yells and shouts were mingled with bursts of talking
which rose into a hurricane of gabble, out of which, mingled with oaths
and curses delivered in the vilest Dutch, I made out, "Spies--shoot--
hang them;" and it seemed that after thrusting ourselves into the
hornets' nest we were to be stung to death.

The noise was deafening, and as we were held men plucked and tore at us,
while the roar of voices seemed to run to right and left all along the
line, alarm spreading; with the result that those outside the narrow
space where the facts were known took it to be a sudden attack from the
rear, and began firing at random in the darkness. In spite of the
despair that came over me, I even then could not help feeling a kind of
exultation--satisfaction--call it what you will--at the surprise we had
given the blundering Boers, and thinking that if the Colonel had been
prepared with our men to charge into them at once, the whole line of the
enemy for far enough to right and left would have turned and fled, after
an ineffectual fire which must have done far more harm to their friends
than to their foes, and then scattered before our fellows like dead
leaves