His men came out, cursed him to his face while giving him their contemptuous reports brought the dead bodies of their comrades into the house and laid them out decently, together with the body of the white-bearded Boer.

After that they mounted their horses without a word to him and rode off.

And he let them ride; for his authority was gone; and he knew that they justly laid the deaths of their comrades at the door of his cowardice.
What he did during the next few awful hours is known only to God and to Boyce himself.

The four dead men, his companions, have told no tales.
But at last, one of his men--Somers was his name--came riding back at break-neck speed.

When he had left the moon rode high in the heavens; when he returned it was dawn--and he had a bloody tunic and the face of a man who had escaped from hell.