Then a shot and a whinnying moan told him that Carew and his
three comrades had edged around the base of the hill into range of
the enemy above them. The man might be wounded, too, as well as the
mount. Seven Boers, and they were thirteen in all. The cast was all
for--
A dash of light! A rattle of firing! Three of his men dropped
backwards. The other ten looked up to face a second flash from the
summit. Only eight heard the answering echoes which came rolling
back to them from the encircling hills. Then Paddy's voice came in
his ears, low, but as unconcerned as ever.
"Remember the fellow who was rejected on account of his teeth,
little Canuck? 'Faith,' he said; 'it's shooting the damned Boers I
want to be, not eating them.' But, by the holy Virgin Mary, in
another ten minutes we'll be shaking 'em between our teeth."
The next flash but one showed only five men on the steep rocky wall;
but those five men were close to the summit. Once on the top, their
rifles could come into play. It was maddening to be picked off, like
stuffed crows resting on a tree branch; maddening to listen to the
low sounds from beneath which told them that some one of their
comrades was facing the end of his fight.
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