"Run, lad, run; we must do it now!" But the pursuing Boers were coming on fast, and the fugitives felt that in a minute or so they would be overtaken.
There was something, though, in their favour, for as the enemy converged upon them the firing from a distance ceased, those who were using their rifles fearing to hit their own friends.
"It's of no use; we can't do it!" panted West, as Ingleborough, now that there was no need to try and diminish the mark at which the Boers fired, closed in again.
"Not two hundred yards away now!" said Ingleborough hoarsely.
"Let's turn and have a couple of shots at them!" cried West.
"No: we should be bound to miss.

Run, run!" It was not the distance but the pace that was killing, and Ingleborough was right.

To have stopped and turned to fire, with their pulses throbbing, breath coming in a laboured way, every nerve and muscle on the jump, must have resulted in missing; and the next moment the enemy would have ridden over them and they would have been either shot or prisoners.
Knowing this, they tore on till the rifle-pit was only a hundred yards away.

The foremost Boers spread out like a fan not fifty yards distant, and came on at full gallop, with the result appearing certain that before the fugitives had torn on despairingly another score of yards their enemies would be upon them.
"My despatch!" groaned West to himself, and then aloud: "Halt! Fire!" True to his comrade in those despairing moments, Ingleborough obeyed the order, stopped short, swung round, and following West's example, he was in the act of raising his rifle to his shoulder with his quivering hands, when-- _Crack, cracky crack, crack, crack, crack_, half-a-dozen flashes and puffs of smoke came from over the ridge of the low earthwork in front, emptying four saddles, while one horse went down headlong, pierced from chest to haunch by a bullet, and the fleeing pair saw the rest of their pursuers open out right and left, to swing round and gallop away back, pursued by a crackling fire which brought down six more before they were out of range.
Meanwhile twice over the big gun from its earthwork far away sent a couple of shells right over the fugitives' heads on their way to the beleaguered town, and a few seconds later a cheery English voice had shouted: "Cease firing!" Then a dozen men came hurrying out of the rifle-pit where they had lain low, to surround the exhausted pair.
"Hands up!" shouted their leader loudly.

"Who are you--deserters ?" "Deserters!" cried West hoarsely, as he pressed his left hand upon his breast and let his rifle fall to the ground.