It is a pretty spot in
itself, but what a different, strange interest is brought in by the two
or three carbines leaning against the wall, the ponies, ready saddled,
tethered at the corner, the hint of camp-fire smoke climbing up through
a clump of trees, and now and then a khaki-clad figure or two passing
between the trunks or lying under them asleep."
Here is another little extract, a bit of a night-spy by three of us on
the west side, where we had heard that the Douglas commando was
establishing a laager near a drift some thirteen miles below camp; a
move forward of their right arm, if true.
"The night was dark as pitch, and very windy, just what we wanted. After
missing our way several times, whispering, consulting, and feeling about
in the dark, we came on the wattle fence and beehive huts of a Kaffir
kraal. Up to this we crept, and Vice dived into the hole of an entrance,
and after some underground rumblings emerged with an old nigger as you
draw a badger from his earth. The old man was soon persuaded by a
moderate bribe to be our guide to the spot we wished to reconnoitre. He
told us that parties of Boers were pretty often round that way, and that
one had passed the previous night at the kraal. Dunkley agreed to stay
with the horses, and Vice and I went on with the Kaffir. The country was
grassy, with plentiful belts and clumps of silvery bush.
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