Just as they had done so they heard four Boers
who had been sitting talking together get up. He and his party dropped
among the bushes and lay there quiet while the Boers came up to the
lamp.
"'We are to keep it going to-night,' one of them said, 'for they may
take it into their heads to make an attack, thinking that after having
had a truce all day we shall not be expecting trouble, and they may
catch us unprepared. I expect our German officer in a few minutes; he
said he would be here about ten o'clock, for the rooineks are not likely
to move until they think we are asleep.'
"They moved away again, and Philips and his men stole quietly off, but
before they rejoined our fellows they heard a sudden shot, and in a
minute a tremendous rifle fire broke out. Evidently the German had
arrived and found the search-light would not act, and they concluded at
once that we were marching against them, and for twenty minutes every
man in the trenches blazed away at random as fast as he could load. I
should say that they must have wasted a hundred thousand cartridges. As
there was no reply they began to think that they had been fooled. Our
fellows were just as much puzzled at the row, and fell in, thinking that
the Boers might possibly be going to attack them.
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