if
I'd dropped the lantern, as I nearly did."

"But what does it mean? Here, sergeant, that's what we have to see."

"Yes, sir," replied the sergeant in a hoarse whisper, "and don't you
grasp it? One way it goes off towards the veldt--"

"And the other way towards the colonel's quarters," whispered Lennox.
"Here, sergeant, there must be some desperate plot--a mine, perhaps,
close up to that hut. Quick! Follow me."

The sergeant did not need the order, for he was already moving in the
direction of the cluster of huts, but going upon his hands and knees,
leaving the lantern behind and feeling his way, guiding himself by his
fingers so as to keep in touch with the coarse, sand-like powder, which
went on in an easily followed line towards the back of the colonel's
hut.

It seemed long, but it was only a matter of a few seconds before they
were both close up, feeling in the darkness for some trace of that which
imagination had already supplied; and there it was in the darkness.

"Here's a bag, sergeant," whispered Lennox.

"A bag, sir? Here's five or six, and one emptied out, and--Run, sir,
for your life! Look at that!"

For there was a flash of light from somewhere behind them, and as, with
a bag of powder which he had caught up in his hand, Lennox turned round,
he could see what appeared to be a fiery serpent speeding at a rapid
rate towards where, half-paralysed, he stood.

The Kopje Garrison--by George Manville Fenn

CHAPTER NINE.

GUY FAWKES WORK.

The light of the fired train had hardly flashed before the first sentry
who saw it, fired, to be followed by one after another, till the bugles
rang out, first one and then another, whose notes were still ringing
when there was a muffled roar, then another, and another, till six had
shaken the earth and a series of peculiar metallic clashes deafened all
around.

But before the first sentry had raised his piece to his shoulder and
drawn, the sergeant, seen in the brilliant light of the running train,
seemed to have gone frantically mad.

"Chuck, sir, chuck!" he yelled, though Lennox needed no telling. The
light which suddenly shone on the back of the cluster of sheet-iron huts
had shown him what was necessary, and after raising the bag he had
picked up with both hands high above his head, and hurling it as far as
he could, he dashed at the others he could see packed close up against
the colonel's hut, so that between him and the sergeant five had