glittered as he gazed; but there was nothing to see now save a beautiful green clump of thorn bush, with the great grey granite block in its midst.
“I make it two hundred and fifty yards good,” he said to himself, and he raised the sight of his rifle. “I ought to be able to hit a steady mark at that distance when cool, and I feel as cool now as a cucumber. They’re grand shots these chaps, and if he can make out my face he’ll bring me down as sure as a gun; and if he does there’s new mourning to be got at home, and a lot of crying, and the old lady and the girls breaking their hearts about stupid old me, so I must have first shot if I can get it. Very stupid of them at home. They don’t know what a fool every one thinks me out here. Nice, though, all the same, and I like ’em—well, love ’em, say—love ’em all too well to let them go breaking their hearts about me; so here goes, Mr. Boer. But he doesn’t go. He must be waiting up there, because I saw his gun. What a while he is! Or is it I’m impatient and think the time long? Couldn’t have been mistaken. I’d speak to old Lennox, but if I do it’s a chance if the enemy don’t show and get first shot.”
Dickenson seemed to cease thinking for a few moments, and lay listening to the rattle of the Boers’ guns across the river and the spattering echo-like sounds of the bullets striking around. Then he began to think again, with his eyes fixed upon the top of the grey stone in the distance, and noting now that a clearly-cut shadow from a long strand was cast right across the top of the stone.
“That’s just in front of where his face ought to be when he takes aim,” thought the young officer.—“Aim at me, to put them at home in mourning and make them go to church the next Sunday and hear our old vicar say a kind word for our gallant young friend who died out in the Transvaal. But he sha’n’t if I can help it. Nasty, sneaking, cowardly beggar! I never did him any harm, and I don’t want to do him any harm; but as he means to shoot me dead, why, common-sense seems to say, ‘Have first shot at him, Bobby, old chap, if you can, for you’re only twenty, and as the days of man are seventy years all told, he’s going to do you out of fifty, which would be a dead robbery, of course; and in this case a dead robbery means murder into the bargain.’ ”
Bob Dickenson’s musings stopped short for a few moments while he looked in vain for some sign of his enemy. Then he went on again in a desultory way, paying no heed to the bullets flying over and around him, and for the time being forgetting all about his comrade, who kept on firing whenever he had an opportunity.
“What a pity it seems!” he mused. “Birds flitting about, bees and butterflies sipping the honey out of the flowers, which are very beautiful; so is this gully, with the sparkling water and ferns and things all a-growing and a-blowing, as they say. Why, I should like nothing better than loafing round here enjoying myself by looking about and doing no harm to anything. I wouldn’t even catch the fish if I wasn’t so hungry; and yet, here I am with a magazine-rifle trying to shoot a Boer dead.
“Humph! yes,” he continued after a short pause; “but only so that he sha’n’t shoot me dead. This is being a soldier, this is. Why was I such a fool as to be one? The uniform and the band and the idea of being brave and all that sort of thing, I suppose. Rather different out here. No band; no uniform but this dirt-coloured khaki; no bed to sleep on; no cover but the tent; roasting by day, freezing by night: hardly a chance to wash one’s self, and nothing to eat; and no one to look at you but the Boers, and when they come to see what the soldiers of the Queen are like they send word they are there with bullets, bless ’em! Well, I suppose it’s all right. We must have soldiers, and I wanted to be one, and now I am one there does seem to be something more than the show in doing one’s duty bravely, as they call it.
“Well,” he muttered at last, “this is getting monotonous, and I’m growing tired of it. If they do shoot us both, they’ll have had to pay for it. Why, they must have used a couple of hundred cartridges. Not very good work for such crack shots as they are said to be. If they spend a hundred cartridges to shoot one buck, it would come cheaper to buy their meat.
“All fancy,” he muttered directly after; “that fellow couldn’t have been going where I thought, and yet it seemed so likely. There’s the clump of trees, and the very stone a fellow would make for to rest his rifle on when he took aim from his snug hiding-place. But there’s no one there. The sun shines right upon it, so that I could see in a moment if a Boer was there. His face would be just beyond that shadow cast so clearly by what must be a dead bough. Yes, all a fancy of mine.”
“Bob!” cried Lennox.
“Hullo!”
“I shall want some of your cartridges if help doesn’t come soon.”
Bob Dickenson made no further reply, but lay gazing with one eye along the barrel of his rifle; for as his comrade spoke it suddenly occurred to him that the top of the grey block of granite looked a little different, but in what way he could not have explained. He noted, too, that there was a tiny flash of light such as might have been thrown off a bright crystal of feldspar, and without pause now he held his rifle more firmly, laid the sight upon the flashing light, and the next moment he would have pulled the trigger. But ere he could tighten his finger upon the little curved piece of steel within the guard of his piece, there was a flash, a puff of smoke, and a sensation as if a wasp had whizzed by his ear. He did not move, only waited while one might have counted ten, and then tightened his grasp.
“Bah!” he ejaculated as the little puff of smoke rose slowly, “how this rifle kicks! Humph!” as the smoke cleared rapidly as soon as it rose enough for the wind to catch it, “I was right after all.”
“Hit?” asked Lennox.
“Yes; and just in time, for we should have been in an awkward place directly.”
“Yes; and I’m afraid we shall be all the same,” said Lennox. “Try if you can do any good at a couple of fellows across yonder. I can’t touch them from where I lie, and if I move I shall shoot no more.”
Dickenson turned from where he was gazing hard at the top of the granite block, the appearance of which was now completely changed; for the Boer who, in accordance with what the young officer had anticipated, had sent so dangerous a bullet whizzing by his ear, had suddenly sprung up, fallen forward, and now lay there with outstretched hands still clutching his rifle, which rested upon the ground in front.
“Mind me firing over you?” said the young officer.
“No; but give me a hint first.”
“All right. I shall have to—Stop a moment,” he growled softly as a puff of smoke spurted up and another bullet came dangerously near. “That’s the worst fellow, isn’t he?”
“One’s as bad as the other. Lie close.”
“Can’t lie any closer, old man. Skin seems to be growing to the rock as it is.”
Crack!
There was another shot, the puff of smoke rising from close alongside the former one which Dickenson had seen.
“I say,” he cried, “which of us are they firing at?”
“Both, I expect,” said Lennox. “They’re sheltered by the same rock; one fires from one side, the other from the second. I can’t touch them. Try at once.”
“Don’t you hurry me, or I shall muff it, old man,” said Dickenson coolly. “I want a better chance. There’s nothing but a bit of wideawake to fire at now.—Ha! Lie still. He’s reaching out to fire at me, I think.”
Dickenson’s rifle spurted, and their enemy’s was like an echo; but the muzzle of the Boer’s piece was suddenly jerked upward, and the bullet had an opportunity of proving how far a Mauser rifle would carry with a high trajectory.
“Thanks, old fellow,” said Lennox. “That has halved the risk. Perhaps the other fellow will think it too dangerous to stay.”
“Doesn’t seem like it,” said Dickenson, drawing in his breath sharply and clapping his left hand to his ear.
“Don’t