f to be
hurt."

The sergeant nodded.

"Here, I can't understand this," said Dickenson.

"You pointed to your ears and signified to me that the explosions had
made you as deaf as a post."

The sergeant turned to him, looking as if he were trying to check a
broad grin, as he pointed to his officer's ears. That made all clear.

"Why, it is I who am deaf," cried Dickenson excitedly; and almost at the
same moment something seemed to go _crack, crack_ in his head, and his
hearing had come back, with everything that followed sounding painfully
loud.

"And no wonder, sir," said the sergeant. "It was pretty sharp. My ears
are singing now. Does it hurt you where you were nipped by the stone?"

"Feels a bit pinched, that's all."

"And you're all right beside, sir?"

"Yes, I think so, sergeant."

"That's good. Well, sir, you did it."

"What! blew up the wagons? Yes, sergeant, I suppose we've done our work
satisfactorily. But do you think the Boers would be hurt?"

"If they were, sir, it was not bad enough to make them stop singing out
for help. I heard them quite plainly after the explosions. Can you
walk a little faster, sir?"

"Oh yes, I think so. I'm quite right, all but this singing noise in my
ears. I say, though, what about the enemy?"

"I don't know anything about them, sir; the kopje hides them for the
present, but once they make out how few we are, I expect they'll come on
with a rush; and the worst of it is, they're mounted. But it'll be all
right, sir. The colonel said he was sending out a covering party to
help us in, didn't he?"

"Yes," replied Dickenson.

"Oh, we shall keep them off. They'll begin sniping as soon as they get
a chance, but they'll never make a big attack in the open field like
we're going over now."

A very little while after they overtook the party hanging back till they
came up, Captain Edwards being with the men, ready to congratulate them
on the admirable way in which their task had been carried out.

The brisk walking over the veldt in the clear, bright air rapidly
dissipated Dickenson's unpleasant sensations, and when the main body was
overtaken the young officer would have felt quite himself again if it
had not been for the dull, heavy sense of misery which asserted itself:
for constantly now came the ever-increasing belief that he must accept
the worst about his comrade, something in his depressed state seeming to
repeat to him the terrible truth--that poor