k in a shady corner, one of them being minus
his right leg, which had been removed half-way between knee and hip; the
other was recovering very slowly from a bullet wound in the face, an
injury which had mended very slowly and kept him low-spirited, fretful,
and ready to affect the companionship of one as fretful and as great a
sufferer as himself. The group of officers stopped to say a few kind
words to the men, and then, having nothing hopeful to hold out for their
comfort, passed on.

"See that Captain Roby?" said the one-legged man.

"Of course I do."

"Well, I did have some hopes of him as being a man, but he isn't. He's
a sneak, that's what he is--a sneak."

"Better not let him hear you say so," said the other.

"Tell him if you like."

"Tell him yourself."

"You know how he let on about Mr Lennox running away in the fight?"

"Oh yes, of course; but it was all a mistake. He was off his head,
Captain Roby was."

"Tchah! Not he. It was all true, but the captain wouldn't hold to it.
They hang together, these officers, and make things up, so that when
their turn comes to be in trouble the others back them. I was out here
the other day, and old Roby came doing the civil and asking me how I
was, so I rounded upon him about giving up saying Mr Lennox was a
coward. What do you think he says?"

"Said you were cracked."

"Yes; only he said mad. What do you think of that?"

"That he ought to have said you were a sneak and a cur," said the man,
getting up and walking away, but only to stop and turn round. "Look
here, corporal," he said; "take a bit of advice. Drop that altogether,
or some day the chaps may turn upon you and forget that you're a
crippled man, and give you what you don't like."

"Why?" cried Corporal May wrathfully.

"Because every one of us thinks Mr Lennox is about the pluckiest fellow
in the regiment, and would follow him into the hottest fire the enemy
could get up."

Affairs, after gliding sluggishly along for months, began to move
swiftly now. Two weeks after there was an announcement that a Kaffir, a
despatch-runner, had reached the kopje, and he was hurried before the
officers, to prove to be the Zulu who had brought in the warning of the
last attack. He had fresh news now--that once more the Boers had been
reinforced, and that they had received three heavy guns. Preparations
were again made for the reception of the enemy, but the men moved about
looking grave and stern.