ee. We can do nothing. I was thinking that we had only to skirt
round this place, and then face to our left and go straight on, and we
should soon reach home."

"Yes, sir; I thought something of that sort at first, but I don't now.
May I say a word, sir?"

"Yes; go on. I should be glad if you would."

"Well, sir, it's like this; whenever one's in the dark one's pretty well
sure to go wrong, for there's only one right way to about fifty that are
not."

"Yes, of course."

"Then won't it be best to wait till the day begins to show in the east,
and rest and graze the ponies for a bit? Better for Mr Lennox too."

"You're right, sergeant; and it would have been better if I had given
the order to do so at first.--Here, dismount, my lads, and hobble your
cobs.--Here, I'll help you to get Mr Lennox down, sergeant. Stop a
moment; let's try and find a patch of heath or grass or something
first.--Hullo! what's here?" he cried a minute later, after dismounting
and feeling about.

"What have you found, sir?"

"Ruts--wheel-marks made, of course, by our guns or their limbers. Can't
we tell our way by those?"

"No, sir. It makes things a bit simpler; but we had a gun and wagon at
each end, and we can't tell in the dark which end this is. If we start
again by this we're just as likely to make straight off for the Boer
camp as for ours."

"Yes; we'll wait for daylight, sergeant," said Dickenson. "We're all
tired out, so let's have two or three hours' rest."

A few minutes later Lennox, still plunged in a stupor-like sleep, was
lifted from the sergeant's pony, and at once subsided into the bed of
short scrub found for him; the ponies, well hobbled, were cropping the
tender parts of the bushes; and the weary party were sitting down.

There was silence for a few minutes, and then the sergeant spoke in a
whisper.

"Think it would be safe for the men to light a pipe, sir?"

"Hum! Yes," said Dickenson, "if they light the match to start their
pipes under a held-out jacket and in the shelter of one of the big
stones."

He repented directly he had given the consent, on account of the risk.

"But, poor follows!" he said, "this will be the second night they have
been out on the veldt, and it will help to keep them awake."

Lennox was at the end of a couple of hours sleeping as heavily as ever.
Dickenson had seated himself close by him so that he could lay a hand
upon his forehead from time to time; and he judged that