Part 30 (2/2)
”Hah!” sighed Ingleborough. ”I'm afraid it's gone for ever! That Kaffir was one of the Boers' slave-like servants, of course, or he wouldn't have been in the camp; and after the attempt at theft, if he was not too badly wounded, he would bolt right off for his own people.
It's a sad business, old lad: but I don't think you need fear that it will fall into the Boers' hands.”
”No, I don't fear that!” replied West. ”But it is the misery and shame of the failure that worries me! I did so mean to succeed!”
”Hah! Yes,” sighed Ingleborough again; ”but someone said--hang me if I know who!--''Tis not in mortals to command success.' You're only a mortal, old fellow, and you must make the best of it.”
West groaned.
”It's horribly hard; just, too, as I had hatched out a way of escape,”
continued Ingleborough.
”I don't want to escape now.”
”What? You don't mean to join the Boers as old Fat Face suggested?”
”Why not?” said West dismally. ”I dare not go back to Kimberley.”
”You daren't turn traitor to your country, and, though you feel right down in the dumps, you dare go back to Kimberley and walk straight to the Commandant and speak out like a man, saying: 'I did my best, sir; but I failed dismally!'”
”Ah!” sighed West.
”And he would reply: 'Well, it's a bad job, my lad; but it's the fortune of war.'”
West held out his hand as he sat there tailor-fas.h.i.+on by his friend in the bottom of the wagon, and there was a warm grip exchanged.
”Bravo, boy! You're coming round! I knew it. You only wanted time.”
”Thank you, Ingle! Now then, what was your idea of escaping?”
”Oh, a very simple one, but as likely to succeed as to fail.”
”Tell me at once! It will keep me from thinking about that miserable despatch.”
”And the jacket! You and I will have to take turn and turn with mine when the cold nights come, unless we pretend to lovely Anson that we are going to stop, and ask him to get you a fresh covering for your chest and back.”
”Oh, none of that, Ingle! I can't bear lying subterfuges. I'd sooner bear the cold of the bitter nights.”
”Don't use big words, lad! Subterfuge, indeed! Say _dodge_--a war dodge. But about my plan! You have noticed that for some reason they have not taken our ponies away.”
”Yes, they are still tethered to the wheel ox that wagon. What of that?
It would be impossible to get to them and ride out unchallenged.”
”Oh no: not my way!”
”What is your way?” said West excitedly.
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