Except for some bruises he was sound enough.
"Are you hurt ?" he asked of Jess, who, pale, faint and bruised, her hat gone, her dress torn by bullets and the rocks, and dripping water at every step, looked an exceedingly forlorn object.
"No," she said feebly, "not very much." He sat down on the rock in the sun, for they were both shivering with cold.

"What is to be done ?" he asked.
"Die," she said fiercely; "I meant to die--why did you not let me die?
Ours is a position that only death can set straight." "Don't be alarmed," he said, "your desire will soon be gratified: those murderous villains will hunt us up presently." The bed and banks of the river were clothed with thin layers of mist, but as the sun gathered power these lifted.

The spot at which they had climbed ashore was about three hundred yards below that where the two Boers and their horses had been destroyed by the lightning on the previous night.

Seeing the mist thin, John insisted upon Jess crouching with him behind a rock so that they could look up and down the river without being seen themselves.

Presently he made out the forms of two horses grazing about a hundred yards away.
"Ah," he said, "I thought so; the devils have off-saddled there.