etly. "Deserved it, sir? Well,
what about you?"

"Oh, I dare say I shall get my promotion when I've earned it," said
Lennox. "Now then, let's look round. You found two bags of the powder,
then?"

"Yes, sir," said the man, pointing; "one down in that pit where they dug
the soil for filling the biscuit-tins and baskets, and the other yonder
behind that wall. The blast must have blown right over them."

"But how about the sentry the colonel said he saw here?" asked Lennox.

The man's countenance changed, a fierce frown distorting it.

"He was quite right, sir," said the sergeant, nodding his head. "They
found him this morning at his post."

"Dead?" said Lennox in a hoarse whisper.

"Yes, sir--dead. Horrid! Some one must have crept up behind him with a
blanket and thrown it over him while some one else used an iron bar. He
couldn't have spoken a word after the first blow."

"But why do you say that?" said Dickenson. "I understand the sentry was
found dead, but--"

"There was the blanket and the iron bar, sir--the one over him and the
other at his side. I don't call that fair fighting, sir; do you?"

The answer consisted of a sharp drawing in of the breath; and the
officers turned away to examine the mischief done by the explosion, the
backs of two houses having been blown right in.

"Well," said Dickenson dryly, "it's awkward, because they've got to be
made up again; but one can't say they're spoiled."

"Not spoiled?" said Lennox, looking wonderingly at the speaker.

"No; they were so horribly straight and blank and square before. They
do look a little more picturesque now. Oh, he was a wicked wretch who
invented corrugated iron!"

"Nonsense!" said Lennox.

"But it does keep the wet out well, sir," put in the sergeant. "I don't
know what we should have done sometimes without it."

Further conversation was stopped by the coming towards camp of a couple
of Boers bearing a white flag; but they were only allowed to approach
within the first line of defence.

"Want to have a look at the mischief they have done," said Dickenson
bitterly, "and they will not have a chance. My word, what they don't
deserve!"

The permission they had come to ask was given, and they were turned back
at once, to signal for their ambulance-wagons to approach, these being
busy for quite an hour picking up the dead and wounded; while the
murdered sentry was the only loss suffered by the defenders of
Groenfontein and t