Five troopers lay
helpless on the dusty soil. Five dead Boers blocked the trail at the
entrance of the narrow pass. It was a drawn game; but the end was
not yet. From beyond the ridge, Weldon could hear the guns still
pounding ceaselessly. He knew that, half a mile in the rear, his
colonel was watching for him to come to the crest of the hill; that,
in a sense, the whole game was waiting upon his moves. Whirling
himself about, he gave a short, sharp order. Scarcely a moment
later, he was astonished to see the Boers in the pass giving way
before the mad rush of his paltry fifteen men. The narrow pass was
his own.
Beyond the pass were more ridges, some parallel with his course,
some crossing it. Far to the eastward, he could see a moving spot,
black even in the increasing darkness of the night. Leaving Piggie
to pick her own way along the rocky ridge, he rose in his stirrups,
shaded his eyes with his hands and peered anxiously towards the
spot. At last his straining eyes could make out eight Boer horsemen,
riding furiously towards the peak which he was in honor bound to
hold. And their course was the chord of the arc of his own circle.
He dropped back to the saddle where he bent low, yielding his whole
body to the flying body of his horse.
Pages:
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265