wanted some guns; but they did not put in an appearance, so we loosed upon
the little troop. They were fairly ambushed; they did not know that a rifle
was within miles of them until the bullets were singing through their
ranks. Horses plunged suddenly forward, reared, lurched now to the near
side, now to the off, then blundered forward on their heads, for many of
our men fired at the chargers instead of at the riders. Dowling's horse
went down with a bullet between the flap of the saddle and the crease of
the shoulder, and the little chap went spinning over his head amongst the
rocks. But a good many saddles were empty. He was up in a moment, yelling
to his men to ride for their lives, and they rode. We charged from cover,
and rode down on the men who had fallen, and as we closed in on them your
countryman lifted his rifle and loosed on us.

"One of our fellows took a flying shot at him at close quarters, for his
rifle was talking the language of death, and that is a tongue no man likes
to listen to. The bit of lead took him in the eye and came out by his ear,
and down he went. But he climbed up in a moment, and his rifle was going to
his shoulder again, when I fired to break his arm, and carried his thumb
away--the thumb of the right hand, I think. The rifle clattered on to the
rocks, but as we drew round him he pulled his revolver with his one good
hand, and started to pot us. He looked a gamecock as he stood there in the
sunlight, his face all bathed in blood, and his shattered hand hanging
numbed beside him. So we gave him a couple in the legs to steady him, and
down by his dead horse he went; but even then he was as eager for fight as
a grass widow is for compliments, and it was not until Jan Viljoens jammed
the butt of his rifle on the crown of his head that he stretched himself
out and took no further part in that circus. We carried him into our lines,
and handed him over to our medical man, though even as we gathered him up
our scouts came galloping in to tell us that a big body of British troops
were advancing to cut us off from our main body. But we knew that if we