h them," whispered West. "Hadn't we
better keep on?"

"Yes, we must chance it," was the reply. "No one can see us twenty
yards away."

"And we ought to make the most of the darkness."

"Hist!" whispered Ingleborough, and his companion sat fast, listening to
the movements of a mounted man who was evidently proceeding cautiously
across their front from left to right. Then the dull sound of hoofs
ceased--went on again--ceased once more for a time, so long that West
felt that their inimical neighbour must have stolen away, leaving the
coast quite clear.

He was about to say so to Ingleborough, but fortunately waited a little
longer, and then started, for there was the impatient stamp of a horse,
followed by a sound that suggested the angry jerking of a rein, for the
animal plunged and was checked again.

As far as the listeners could make out, a mounted man was not forty
yards away, and the perspiration stood out in great drops upon West's
brow as he waited for the discovery which he felt must be made. For a
movement on the part of either of the ponies, or a check of the rein to
keep them from stretching down their necks to graze, would have been
enough. But they remained abnormally still, and at last, to the
satisfaction and relief of both, the Boer vedette moved off at a trot,
leaving the pair of listeners once more free to breathe.

"That was a narrow escape!" said West, as soon as their late companion
was fairly out of hearing.

"Yes. I suppose we ought to have dismounted and crawled up to him and
put a bullet through his body," answered Ingleborough.

"Ugh! Don't talk about it!" replied West. "I suppose we shall have
plenty of such escapes as this before we have done."

"You're right! But we can move on now, and--Hist! There are some more
on the left."

"I don't hear anyone. Yes, I do. Sit fast; there's a strong party
coming along."

West was quite right, a body of what might have been a hundred going by
them at a walk some eighty or ninety yards away, and at intervals a
short sharp order was given in Boer-Dutch which suggested to West
commands in connection with his own drill, "Right incline!" or "Left
incline!" till the commando seemed to have passed right away out of
hearing.

"Now then," said West softly, "let's get on while we have the chance."

The words were hardly above his breath, but in the utter stillness of
the night on the veldt they penetrated sufficiently far, and in an
inst