CHAPTER NINETEEN.
THE SKY CLEARS.
Once more in the wagon, one ox a pair of despondent prisoners, hot intemper as well as in person with the excitement of what he had so latelygone through, West cast himself down upon the floor ready to groan,while his more experienced, harder comrade sat down cross-legged tothink.
"If I only knew where the coat was!" said West, with a groan.
"Hah!" sighed Ingleborough. "I'm afraid it's gone for ever! ThatKaffir was one of the Boers' slave-like servants, of course, or hewouldn't have been in the camp; and after the attempt at theft, if hewas not too badly wounded, he would bolt right off for his own people.It's a sad business, old lad: but I don't think you need fear that itwill fall into the Boers' hands."
"No, I don't fear that!" replied West. "But it is the misery and shameof the failure that worries me! I did so mean to succeed!"
"Hah! Yes," sighed Ingleborough again; "but someone said--hang me if Iknow who!--`'Tis not in mortals to command success.' You're only amortal, old fellow, and you must make the best of it."
West groaned.
"It's horribly hard; just, too, as I had hatched out a way of escape,"continued Ingleborough.
"I don't want to escape now."
"What? You don't mean to join the Boers as old Fat Face suggested?"
"Why not?" said West dismally. "I dare not go back to Kimberley."
"You daren't turn traitor to your country, and, though you feel rightdown in the dumps, you dare go back to Kimberley and walk straight tothe Commandant and speak out like a man, saying: `I did my best, sir;but I failed dismally!'"
"Ah!" sighed West.
"And he would reply: `Well, it's a bad job, my lad; but it's the fortuneof war.'"
West held out his hand as he sat there tailor-fashion by his friend inthe bottom of the wagon, and there was a warm grip exchanged.
"Bravo, boy! You're coming round! I knew it. You only wanted time."
"Thank you, Ingle! Now then, what was your idea of escaping?"
"Oh, a very simple one, but as likely to succeed as to fail."
"Tell me at once! It will keep me from thinking about that miserabledespatch."
"And the jacket! You and I will have to take turn and turn with minewhen the cold nights come, unless we pretend to lovely Anson that we aregoing to stop, and ask him to get you a fresh covering for your chestand back."
"Oh, none of that, Ingle! I can't bear lying subterfuges. I'd soonerbear the cold of the bitter nights."
"Don't use big words, lad! Subterfuge, indeed! Say _dodge_--a wardodge. But about my plan! You have noticed that for some reason theyhave not taken our ponies away."
"Yes, they are still tethered to the wheel ox that wagon. What of that?It would be impossible to get to them and ride out unchallenged."
"Oh no: not my way!"
"What is your way?" said West excitedly.
"Last night was dark as pitch."
"Yes; but there are double lines of sentries about."
"With sharp eyes too; but there was a commando rode out, evidently topatrol the country and look out for our people."
"Yes; I heard them ride away."
"And I heard them come back at daybreak; but I was too lazy to get up."
"I don't see what you are aiming at," said West wearily; "but I supposeyou have some good idea--I hope a plausible one."
"I think it is, old lad," said Ingleborough, speaking now in a lowwhisper. "Suppose when that commando musters after dark--I am supposingthat one will go out again to-night--suppose, I say, when it musters wehad crept out of the wagon and crawled as far as that one where ourponies are tethered?"
West's hand stole forward to grip his comrade's knee.
"Ah, you're beginning to grasp it!" said Ingleborough. "Then, as Istill have my knife, suppose I cut the reins and we mounted."
"And joined the muster?" said West, in a hoarse whisper.
"It isn't a dragoon troop, with men answering the roll-call and tellingoff in fours from the right."
"No, just a crowd!" said West excitedly.
"Exactly! There's only one reason why we shouldn't succeed."
"What's that?"
"We don't look rough and blackguardly enough."
"Oh, Ingle, I quite grasp it now!"
"I've been quite aware of that, old lad, for the last minute--that andsomething else. I don't know what will have happened when the war isover, but at present I don't wear a wooden leg. Oh, my knee! I didn'tthink your fingers were made of bone."
"I beg your pardon, old fellow!"
"Don't name it, lad! I'm very glad you have so much energy in you, andproud of my powers of enduring such a vice-like--or say vicious--gripwithout holloaing out. Next time try your strength on Anson! Why, yourfingers would almost go through his fat."
"Ingle, we must try it to-night."
"Or the first opportunity."
"Why didn't you think of that before we lost the despatch?"
"Hah! Why didn't I? Suppose it didn't come!"
West rose and crept to the end of the wagon and looked out.
"The ponies are still there," he whispered, and then he startedviolently, for a voice at the other end of the wagon cried: "Hallo, youtwo!"
West turned, with his heart sinking, convinced that the man must haveheard.
"I'm just off sentry!" the Boer said good-humouredly. "I must haveshaved that Kaffir somewhere and not hurt him much. As soon as I wasrelieved I went and had a good look for him; but there wasn't so much asa drop of blood."
"Poor wretch!" thought West.
"Lucky for him!" said Ingleborough, in Dutch.
"But I made the beggar drop the jacket," said the Boer, laughing; and,to the delight of the prisoners, he sent it flying into the wagon.
That was all, and the sentry strode away, just as West bounded upon therecovered garment like a tiger upon its prey.
"Say bless him!" whispered Ingleborough.
"Oh, Ingle!" groaned his companion, in a choking voice: "I can feel thedespatch quite safe."
"Hah!" ejaculated Ingleborough.
"And such a little while ago I was ready to curse fate and the very hourI was born!"
"And very wrong of you too, my son!" said Ingleborough, in tones whichbetrayed some emotion. "Cursing's a very bad habit, and only belongs totimes when wicked old men lived in old-fashioned plays and indulged init upon all kinds of occasions, especially when they had sons anddaughters who wanted to marry somebody else."
"Oh, Ingle! Oh, Ingle! The sky doesn't look so covered with blackclouds now."
"By no means, my lad! I can see enough blue sky to make a Dutchman apair of breeches--for Dutchman let's say Boer. I say, what do you sayto going out on patrol to-night?"
"Yes, yes, of course! But we have no guns!"
"Nor bandoliers, and that's a fact! Well, it's of no use to think ofgetting our own back again, even if we said we repented and meant tojoin the Boers at once."
"They wouldn't trust us!"
"Too slim! Fools if they did!"
"Then it is hopeless!" said West. "Someone would notice it at once!"
"Yes," said Ingleborough, "and those were beautiful rifles too. Butlook here: I could see a way out of the difficulty, only you are soscrupulous. One mustn't tell a diplomatic fib."
"I can't stand telling an outrageous lie, even under stern necessity!"said West, pulling down his jacket after putting it on.
"And you are so horribly honest!"
"Yes," said West bitterly. "I have not, as Anson declared, been busybuying illicit-diamonds. But why do you say this--what do you mean?"
"I meant that I'd have risked it as soon as it was dark, and crept awayto steal a couple of the Boers' Mausers--just like a cat--mouser afterMauser--I say, what a horrible joke!"
West was silent.
"They say they're splendid pieces; but it would be a terrible theft,because I should take the bandoliers too."
West was still silent.
"I say, lad," whispered Ingleborough, laughing gently: "you couldn'tobject to my stealing the rifles that would be used to kill our men."
"How would you manage?" whispered West.
"Hah!" sighed Ingleborough, relieving his breast of a long pent-upbreath, as he looked up at the arched-in wagon-tilt: "this fellow's verynearly as wicked as I am."
"Don't--don't joke!" said West: "the matter is too serious. How wouldyou manage?"
"Never you mind, old Very Particular! Leave that to me! By the way,though, before I lie down and have a good nap, in case I should be outall night, I don't think there is the slightest probability of ourjoining the Boer forces, do you?"
"Not the slightest!" answered West drily. "There'll be plenty oftraitors to their country without us!"
Five minutes later Ingleborough, whose head troubled him more than heowned to, was sleeping soundly, leaving West thinking deeply over theprospects of a daring escape, and every now and then glancing out andacross the laager to make sure that the ponies had not been moved, aswell as to fix the position of every wagon well in his mind ready forthe time when his comrade and he would be stealing across in the dark,and thinking at times that the Boers must be mad to leave theirprisoners' mounts tethered in sight of their temporary prison.
"But they're altogether mad!" he mused, "or they would never have daredto defy the power of England in the way they have done!"
This thought had hardly passed through his mind when he saw a group ofthe laager's occupants come by the prison wagon, each with a couple ofwell-filled bandoliers crossbelt-fashion over his breast, and rifleslung, making for the range forming one side of the laager. They brokeup into twos and threes, and as they approached they unslung theirweapons and took off their cartridge-belts to place them beneath thewagon-tilts, while they settled down to prepare a meal before having arest.
"Just come off duty!" thought the prisoner, and, with his heart beatingfast, he sat watching two of the men and then gazing hard at the nearestwagon, piercing in imagination the thick canvas covering spread over thearching-in hoops, and seeing, as he believed, exactly where two Mauserrifles and the Boers' bandoliers had been laid.
"Why, if it were dark," he thought, "I could creep out and secure thosetwo rifles as easily as possible--if they were not taken away!"
West's face turned scarlet, and it was not from the heat of the sun uponthe wagon-tilt, nor from the sultry air which passed in from one end andout at the other.
He drew a deep breath and moved towards Ingleborough to tell him of theburning thoughts within him; but his comrade was sleeping so peacefullythat he shrank from awakening him.
"He'll want all his strength!" thought West, and then he fell towondering whether or not they would succeed.
The plan was so wonderfully simple that it seemed very possible, but--
Yes, there were so many "buts" rising up in the way. The slightesthitch would spoil all, and they would be detected and subjected to theroughest of usage, even if they were not shot. But it was worth therisk, and the thinker's heart began to beat faster, and his hand stoleto the part of his jacket where he had hidden the despatch, and as hedid so he mentally saw himself and his companion riding through thedarkness with the Boers, and waiting for an opportunity to dash off,taking the enemy so by surprise that they would be off and away and wellinto the gloom before they could be followed.
Once well mounted, with the open veldt before them, and the darkness fortheir friend, he felt that it would go hard if they did not escape.
He had come to this point, and was full of a wild exhilaration, feelingat heart that the venture only wanted the dash with which they wouldinfuse it, when his attention was taken up by seeing the Boer leaderwith about half-a-dozen of his field-cornets pass by the open end of thetent and cross the laager.
He watched them with some anxiety, and then all at once his heart beganto sink with a sudden attack of despair, for two of the party went offin front, unfastened the reins by which the two Basuto ponies weretethered to the wagon-wheels, and led them to where the Boer leader andthe rest had halted, prior to putting the little animals through theirpaces as if to test their powers in connection with some object in view.
A castle in the air dashed down into nothingness, and he uttered a lowgroan, which made Ingleborough start up with a wondering look in hiseyes.