CHAPTER TWENTY.
Peter Pienaar Goes to the Wars This chapter is the tale that Peter told me--long after, sitting beside a stove in the hotel at Bergen, where we were waiting for our boat.
He climbed on the roof and shinned down the broken bricks of the outer wall.

The outbuilding we were lodged in abutted on a road, and was outside the proper _enceinte_ of the house.

At ordinary times I have no doubt there were sentries, but Sandy and Hussin had probably managed to clear them off this end for a little.

Anyhow he saw nobody as he crossed the road and dived into the snowy fields.
He knew very well that he must do the job in the twelve hours of darkness ahead of him.

The immediate front of a battle is a bit too public for anyone to lie hidden in by day, especially when two or three feet of snow make everything kenspeckle.