ttered the other. "I want to live." Then aloud, "Don't
talk like that, man! It's their lives or ours. Hit every one you
can.--Phew! that was near my skull. I say, I don't call this coming
fishing."

He turned towards his comrade with a comical look of dismay upon his
countenance after a very narrow escape from death, a bullet having
passed through his cap, when _whizz! whizz! whirr_! half-a-dozen more
bullets passed dangerously near.

"Mind, for goodness' sake!" shouted Lennox, in a voice full of the agony
he felt. "Don't you see that you are exposing yourself?"

"What am I to do?" cried the young officer angrily. "If I lean an inch
that way they fire at me, and if I turn this way it's the same."

"Creep closer to the stone."

"Then I can't take aim."

"Then don't try. We've got to shelter till their firing brings help."

"Oh, it's all very fine to talk, Drew, old chap, but I'm not going to
lie here like a target for them to practise at without giving the
beggars tit for tat.--Go it, you ugly Dutch ruffians! There, how do you
like that?"

He fired as he spoke, after taking careful aim at another, who, from a
post of vantage, kept on sending his bullets dangerously near.

"Did you hit?" asked Lennox.

"I think so," was the reply. "He has backed away."

"We must keep on firing at them," said Lennox; "but keep your shots for
those who are highest up there among the trees."

He set the example as he spoke, firing, after taking a long and careful
aim, at a big-bearded fellow who had crawled some distance to his right
so as to try and take the pair in the flank. The Boer had reached his
fresh position by making a rush, and his first shot struck the stones
close to Drew's face, sending one up to inflict a stinging blow on the
cheek, while in the ricochet it went whizzing by Dickenson's shoulder,
making him start and utter an angry ejaculation, for he had again
exposed himself.

"Wish I could break myself off bad habits," he muttered, as a little
shower of bullets came whizzing about them, but too late to harm.

There was a certain amount of annoyance in his tones, for he noted that,
while he had started up a little, his companion, in spite of the
stinging blow he had received on the cheek, lay perfectly motionless
upon his chest, waiting his time, finger on trigger, and ready to give
it a gentle pressure when he had ceased to aim at one particular spot
where he had seen the Boer's head for a moment.