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In extended order they re-formed and dashed across the plateau a rapidly contracting line of khaki tipped with steel. Almost in the centre of the top of the kopje was an irregular mound of piled rocks and earth. Towards this the Waffs charged, their officers momentarily expecting the rattle of musketry and the tic-tac of machine-guns.
It was evident that I had traveled far in my delirium, and my heart bounded, as I made out, away to the north, a kopje of rugged rocks rising from the dunes. Here, apparently, then, I was at length reaching the confines of this wilderness of sand, for these were the first rocks that I had seen since we entered the desert it seemed a lifetime back!
It is not true that they had neglected to occupy the kopje under which they lay, for two companies had been posted upon it. But there seems to have been no thought of imminent danger, and the regiment had pitched its tents and gone very comfortably to sleep without a thought of the gentleman in the tinted glasses. In the middle of the night he was upon them with a hissing sleet of bullets.
In front of our kopje, near the foot, ran a donga, and at a distance of about 1,000 paces, parallel to us, lay another oblong kopje occupied by the enemy. This kopje we called Rooirandjes. On November 8 we received the order from our General to attack the Rooirandjes the following day. We were about 250 strong, and very willing, as that position had not yet been entrenched.
I thought it was that of some one else." "Who could it be but me?" asked Gregory, seating himself on a stone at her feet. "Do you suppose you are the only man who would find anything to attract him to this kopje?" "Oh, no," said Gregory. He was not going to argue that point with her, nor any other; but no old Boer was likely to take the trouble of climbing the kopje, and who else was there?
I shall always remember that little group of men working most admirably on the kopje high up amid the storm and rain one lying on his face in the mud with a telescope propped on a stone reading the reply; another keeping the paper dry under his helmet while he spelt the message to the operator; and a third working the shutter that, by occulting the light, makes flashes from the lamp.
Having taken a series of compass bearings and entered a few details on his map Wilmshurst started off for a kopje midway between the aasvogels and the springbok. Although he took the greatest pains to keep out of sight the nimble quadrupeds suddenly bolted, flying like the wind.
Now immediately in front of our hill was another and smaller one, too inconsiderable to be occupied permanently, but useful for commanding the Boer front at rifle range. As we lay watching the three specks crossing the field, "Sergeant," said the officer, "take a few men down to that kopje, and see if you can't get a shot at the fellows."
He himself crept under a shelving rock that lay at the foot of the kopje, stretched himself on his stomach, and waved his dilapidated little shoes in the air. Soon, from the blue bag where he kept his dinner, he produced a fragment of slate, an arithmetic, and a pencil.
Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed after the departure of the guard before the travellers perceived a man intently watching them from the summit of a low kopje about a quarter of a mile ahead of them. For perhaps a minute he stood, motionless as a statue, gazing steadfastly at them under the shade of his hand, then he turned suddenly and disappeared.
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