I suppose we ought to have dismounted and crawled up to him and put a bullet through his body," answered Ingleborough.
"Ugh! Don't talk about it!" replied West.

"I suppose we shall have plenty of such escapes as this before we have done." "You're right! But we can move on now, and--Hist! There are some more on the left." "I don't hear anyone.

Yes, I do.

Sit fast; there's a strong party coming along." West was quite right, a body of what might have been a hundred going by them at a walk some eighty or ninety yards away, and at intervals a short sharp order was given in Boer-Dutch which suggested to West commands in connection with his own drill, "Right incline!" or "Left incline!" till the commando seemed to have passed right away out of hearing.
"Now then," said West softly, "let's get on while we have the chance." The words were hardly above his breath, but in the utter stillness of the night on the veldt they penetrated sufficiently far, and in an instant both the despatch-riders knew what the brief orders they had heard meant, namely that as the commando rode along a trooper was ordered to rein up at about every hundred yards and was left as a vedette.
For no sooner had West spoken than there was a sharp challenge to left and right, running away along a line, and directly after the reports of rifles rang out and bullets whizzed like insects through the dark night air.

Many flew around and over the heads of the fugitives; for the moment the discovery was made West and Ingleborough pressed their ponies' sides and went forward at full gallop to pass through the fire in front of them.
It was close work, for guided by the sounds of the ponies' hoofs, the Boers kept on firing, one shot being from close at hand--so close that the flash seemed blinding, the report tremendous.