The oppression of that still heat!
Fifty yards away the atmosphere became a simmering mirage; the
outposts lost all semblance of nature's form, and stood out
exaggerated in the middle distance as great blurs of brown and black.
But it is only a passing inconvenience. In an hour or two the strength
of that great, fiery, pitiless sun will be on the wane: if it were
otherwise, then, indeed, would the Karoo be a desert. So you doze--it
is too hot to sleep--and thank Fortune that you have not to march
during the furnace hours of the day. And as you doze, parched and
sweating, a little blue-grey lizard pops out from beneath the cart
beside you, and, climbing gingerly up the stem of a solitary
karoo-bush, surveys you with great, thoughtful, unblinking eyes. He is
a complacent little beast, of wonderful skin and marking; and if it
were not for the palpitation of his white waistcoat, it had been
difficult to say he lived. You wonder if he too feels the heat. You
think he does; for he opens his pink maw and sways his sprig of
heather, to make for himself that breeze in the still air for which
you are panting. You close your eyes, and smile to think that such a
little thing as a karoo-blended lizard can interest you. A sound
catches your ear: it is the upbraiding note of the bustard. Again and
again you hear it. A covey of these birds must have been raised. As
the clatter of their cry dies away, you distinguish the muffled
strokes of a galloping horse. This is significant. No man in his
senses would gallop in this heat unless his mission was serious.
Nearer and nearer comes the horseman. You hate to move, though you
hear the rapid breathing of the horse and the complaints of chafing
leather.

"Where is headquarters?" demands a voice in authority.

Your dream and rest is over; for are you not the general's flunkey?
You jump to your feet.

"Where have you come from?"

_Orderly_ (_as he hands in a written message_). "From the officer
commanding the advance-guard." The message runs: "Patrol on left front
reports large force of Boers, estimated 500 strong, to be behind the
rise three miles to the right of the solitary flat-topped kopje on our
left front. Patrol has fallen back upon me."

This information is laid before the brigadier, who is half asleep
under the mess-cart.

_Brigadier._ "How far is the flat kopje from us?"

_Intelligence Officer._ "About four miles, sir."

_B._ "Intervening country?"

_I. O._ "Flat as a p