Three or
four shots answered his own almost instantly and there was a laugh that
told him that they had practised the same trick that he had done, and
had only raised a hat to draw his shot. Again there was silence for some
time. Then he went back and told Sankey that he was about to start.
"All right, Chris; I shall be very glad when you have gone. You will get
hit sooner or later if you go on firing, and I shall be a great deal
more comfortable when you are once off. I don't believe they will
venture across the drift; they know how straight you shoot."
Chris crawled back for some distance, and then got down into the road.
He had scarcely done so when a shot rung out fifty yards away. His right
leg gave way and he fell, and with a shout of triumph two Boers ran up
to him. Chris did not attempt to move. The rifle had flown from his hand
as he fell, and lay some five or six yards away.
"I surrender," he said when they ran up to him.
"Well, rooinek," they exclaimed, "you are a brave young fellow to make a
fight alone against a dozen of us. It would have been wiser if you had
gone away when you were lucky enough to get up the bank without being
hit. What was the use of staying by your dead comrade?"
"He is not dead," Chris said.
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