e'll buy a
lot. Commando it, he'll call it."

That very day, growing weary of trying to starve out the garrison, the
enemy made an attack from the south, and after a furious cannonading
began to fall back in disorder, drawing out the mounted men and two
troops of lancers in pursuit.

As they fell back the disorder seemed to become a rout; but Colonel
Lindley had grown, through a sharp lesson or two, pretty watchful and
ready to meet manoeuvre with manoeuvre. He saw almost directly that the
enemy were overdoing their retreat; and he acted accordingly.
Suspecting that it was a feint, he held his mounted troops in hand, and
then made them fall back upon the village.

It was none too soon, his men being just in time to fall on the flank of
one of the other two commandos, whose leaders had only waited till the
first had drawn the British force well out of their entrenchments before
one attacked from the east, and the other drove back the defenders of
the ford and crossed at once, but only to bring themselves well under
the attention of their own captured gun on the kopje, its shells playing
havoc amongst them, while the men of the colonel's regiment stood fast
in their entrenchments. The result was that in less than an hour the
last two commandos retired in disorder and with heavy loss.

"There," said Lennox as the events of the day were being discussed after
the mess dinner, "you see, Bob, it doesn't do to trust the Boers."

"Pooh!" replied the young officer. "There are Boers and Boers, and one
must trust them when they supply the larder. Good-luck to our lot, I
say, and may they bring in another big supply. If they don't, we shall
have to begin on those quadrupedal locomotives of horn, gristle, and
skin they call spans. Ugh! how I do loathe trek ox!"

"Talking of that," said Lennox, "the cornet and his men ought to have
been off to-night."

"Why?" said Dickenson, staring.

"Why? Because the enemy will be in such a state of confusion after the
check they had to-day."

"To be sure; let's go and tell them so."

"I was nearly suggesting it to the colonel, but he would only have given
me one of his looks. You know."

"Yes; make you feel as if you're nine or ten, even if he hadn't
sarcastically hinted that you had not been asked for your advice. But I
say, Drew, old fellow, I think you're right, and if Blackbeard thinks it
would be best he'll go to the old man like a shot. No bashfulness in
him."

With