here will be
delighted to see them. We should enjoy a good honest fight. What I
don't like is this going on shrinking and pulling the tongue farther
through the buckle. If it goes on like this much longer I shall have to
go to our saddler to punch a few more holes in my belt. I say, though,
one feels better after that draught of water. I believe if I had stayed
up yonder much longer I should have gone quite off my head, through
fancying things, for it was only imagination after all."

A fresh company occupied the kopje that evening, and once more perfect
silence reigned. There was one of the glorious displays of stars seen
so often in those clear latitudes, when the great dome of heaven seems
to be one mass of sparkling, encrusted gems.

Lennox had been standing outside his quarters for some time, enjoying
the coolness, and shrinking from going in to where the hut was hot and
stuffy and smelling strongly of the now extinguished paraffin-lamp,
mingled with a dash of the burned tobacco in Dickenson's pipe.

"I say," said the latter, "hadn't you better come in and perch? Nothing
like making your hay when the sun shines, and getting your forty winks
while you can."

"Quite right," replied Lennox in a low, dreamy voice; "but it's very
pleasant out here."

"That's true enough, no doubt, old man; but you'll be on duty to-morrow
night out yonder, and you can go on star-gazing then. Yah! Oh--oh dear
me, how sleepy I do feel!" he continued, yawning. "I'll bet a penny
that I don't dream once. Regularly worn out, that's how I am. There,
good-night if you won't come and lie down. I shall just allow myself
half a--Oh, hang it! I do call that too bad!"

For ere he could finish his sentence a rifle cracked somewhere near the
top of the kopje, followed by another and another; the bugles rang out,
and from the continued firing it seemed evident that the Boers were
going against their ordinary custom and making a night attack.

If they did, though, they were to find the camp ready for them, every
man and officer springing to his place and waiting for orders--those
given to Captain Roby being, as his men were so familiar with the spot,
to take half a company and reinforce the detachment on the kopje.

They found that the firing had completely ceased by the time they were
half-way up, and upon joining the officer in command there, to Captain
Roby's great satisfaction, he found a similar scene being enacted to
that whi