"Just as many, as we schoolboys used to say, as you could put in your
eye with the point of a needle. All a lie! Anson was putting his own
case. All we brought away was the despatch."

"Then where is it?" said the Boer sharply.

"I don't know; I was not the bearer," said Ingleborough quietly, "But
you know where it is now?"

"I--do--not," said Ingleborough firmly. "I have not the slightest idea
where it is!"

"Then you have sent it on by someone else?"

"No," said Ingleborough. "There, you know that we have failed, and if
you set us at liberty, all we can do is to go back to Kimberley and say
what has happened."

"You will not go back to Kimberley," said the Boer, speaking with his
eyes half-closed, "and if you did it would only be to go into prison,
for the Diamond City is closely besieged, and if not already taken it
will in a few days be ours. There, go back to your wagon, and spend the
time in thinking till I send for you again. The choice is before you--a
good position with us, or a long imprisonment before you are turned out
of the country."

He pointed towards their temporary place of confinement, and then turned
away, while a couple of the Boers marched them to the wagon and left
them in the sentry's charge.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE SKY CLEARS.

Once more in the wagon, one ox a pair of despondent prisoners, hot in
temper as well as in person with the excitement of what he had so lately
gone through, West cast himself down upon the floor ready to groan,
while his more experienced, harder comrade sat down cross-legged to
think.

"If I only knew where the coat was!" said West, with a groan.

"Hah!" sighed Ingleborough. "I'm afraid it's gone for ever! That
Kaffir was one of the Boers' slave-like servants, of course, or he
wouldn't have been in the camp; and after the attempt at theft, if he
was not too badly wounded, he would bolt right off for his own people.
It's a sad business, old lad: but I don't think you need fear that it
will fall into the Boers' hands."

"No, I don't fear that!" replied West. "But it is the misery and shame
of the failure that worries me! I did so mean to succeed!"

"Hah! Yes," sighed Ingleborough again; "but someone said--hang me if I
know who!--`'Tis not in mortals to command success.' You're only a
mortal, old fellow, and you must make the best of it."

West groaned.

"It's horribly hard; just, too, as I had hatched out a way of escape,"
continued