Plunging into the fray with a curse, he exercised his great strength, throwing the men this way and that like ninepins, and finally dragging Silas to his feet again.
"Come!" he shouted, "take him out of this;" and accordingly, with taunts, curses and obloquy, the poor old man, whose fringe of white locks was red with blood, was kicked and pushed on to the verandah, then off it on to the drive.

Here he fell over the body of the murdered Kafir boy, but finally he was dragged to the open space by the flagstaff, on which the Union Jack that he had hoisted there some two months before still waved bravely in the breeze.

There he sank down upon the grass, his back against the flagstaff, and asked faintly for some water.
Bessie, who was weeping bitterly, and whose heart felt as though it were bursting with anguish and indignation, pushed her way through the men, and, running to the house, filled a glass and brought it to him.

One of the brutes tried to knock it out of her hand, but she avoided him and gave it to her uncle, who drank it greedily.
"Thank you, love, thank you," he said; "don't be frightened, I ain't much hurt.

Ah! if only John had been here, and we had had an hour's notice, we would have held the place against them all." Meanwhile one of the Boers, climbing on to the shoulders of another, had succeeded in untying the cord on which the Union Jack was bent, and hauled it down.