Then the great beasts began to get upon their feet and shake themselves.
"It's all over now," I thought, as I stood appalled by the noise made by the bullocks, one of them lowing loudly; and, as if my despair was not deep enough, I found from what I could hear that I had fired a train, started a conflagration, or--to use another simile--touched one end of a row of card houses and set all in motion.

The action of rousing up the blacks asleep beneath this one had communicated itself from wagon to wagon on to the end.

"Open sesame!" caused the cave of the Forty Thieves to open; the magic word "Trek!" had started the wagon-drivers and forelopers; and now I expected the next thing would be a rush of Boer cavalry to surround us, unless Joeboy and I could hide.
"Yah! hor! whoo-oop! Trek!" cried Joeboy in his hoarsest voice, and he ran from me towards the foreloper, leaving me half-stunned at the turn matters had taken.
"Trek!" cried the black, who had climbed on to the box; then there was a tremendous crack of the huge whip he wielded, the oxen jerked at the trek-tow, the wheels creaked, and as I involuntarily took my rifle from where it was slung and cocked it, the huge wagon began to lumber heavily through the soft earth, and I walked by its side uninterrupted, finding that in turn first one and then another of the six wagons started and followed, till the entire row were in motion, following the lead of Joeboy with the first foreloper, the whole business growing, in the darkness, more and more like a feverish dream..