All in the little camp, save the two sentries, slept soundly until, at
two in the morning, they awoke with a sudden start. A deep boom and a
strange rushing sound was in their ears. With exclamations of surprise
they all scrambled out of their tents.

"What is that?" Chris asked the sentry.

"It is a big gun on the top of that high hill they call Talana. We saw
the flash of light, and directly after heard the report, and a rushing
sound. I suppose it was a shot overhead; if it had been a shell we
should have heard it burst and seen the flash. It must have been fired
at the camp."

The horses, startled by the report, were plunging and kicking, and the
lads at once ran to their heads and patted and soothed them. Not until
they were quiet did they gather again.

"What time is it?" Chris asked.

"The clock on the church struck two a few minutes ago," Brown, who was
on sentry, said. As he spoke another gun boomed from Talana, or as it
was generally called in the town, Smith's Hill, from a farm owned by a
settler of that name at its foot. It was about a mile and a half east of
the town, and therefore some three miles from the camp.

"It must be a very heavy gun by its sound--as big as the largest of
those we have heard fired from that fort above Johannesburg. Joubert
must have started from Newcastle early to have managed to get it up