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As she struck the outskirts of the little town the unmistakable sound of El Rey's iron-shod hoofs brought heads into doors, children at the house corners to look upon her. She came down the main street at a smart clip, to bring up with a slide at the hitch-rail before Baston's store where the monthly mail was handled.
It was Bolt, coming like his namesake, down along the sloping stretches. But a great wave of exultation swept over her. She rose in her stirrups, shook an insulting hand above her, dropped on El Rey's neck, swerved him east and swept away toward the lifting skirts of the wooded hills.
Her face was flushed, for what reason Kenset, stunned by her vehement words, could not tell. She flung the rein up and followed it, leaping to saddle like a man. "I tol' you we couldn't be friends!" she cried, her eyes blazing with sudden fire, "there ain't no manner of use a-tryin'." Kenset, springing forward, caught El Rey's bit. The stallion reared and struck, but he held him down.
The Boers who fled with their cattle in that way we called 'Bush-lancers. We came up with De la Rey's lager near the Elands River, and later on made the acquaintance of Captain Kirsten's scouts, to whom we offered our services. In those days it was very pleasant to belong to the reconnoitring corps.
It was well devised and very well carried out; but the inherent defect of it was that, when subdivided in this way, the Boer force was no longer strong enough to gain more than a mere success of outposts. De la Rey's attack was delivered at break of day on July 11th at Uitval's Nek, a post some eighteen miles west of the capital.
El Rey's silver ears lay back along his neck, the mane above them was like a cloud, his long tail streamed behind him like a comet and forgotten was his singlefooting. He ran, his great limbs gathering and spreading beneath him gathering and spreading with the regularity, of clock-work. Tharon's blue eyes were narrow as her father's, the little lines about them stood out.
In General De la Rey's Commando, which comprised burghers from eight large districts, it had been found necessary to appoint marriage officers, and quite a large number of marriages were contracted. I mention this to show how diversified are the duties of the Boer general in war-time, and what sort of strange offices he is sometimes called upon to perform.
They were in all probability left there as cover for the waggons. The few shots we fired at them missed their aim. We saw De la Rey's burghers capture a large herd of cattle.
There are at least half a dozen places, between the Siboney valley and the crest of the divide beyond Sevilla, where a few simple intrenchments in the shape of rifle-pits and barricades would have enabled even a small force, fighting as General Vara del Rey's command afterward fought at Caney, to detain our army for days, if not to check its advance altogether.
The Blood-letting of plethoric Placemen. The Posada. Ingles and Benoliel. Amulets for successful parturition. Visits of a Moorish Taleb and a Berber. Three Sundays during a week in Barbary. M. Rey's account of the Empire of Morocco. The Government Auctioneer gives an account of Slavery and the Slave Trade in Morocco. Benoliel as English Cicerone. Departure from Tangier to Gibraltar.
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