“No: only suck. Lost two more baits; but I shall have a big one directly.”
“Glad of it. How will you cook it – roast or boil?”
“Don’t chaff. Mind your own line.”
Drew Lennox smiled, glanced down at his line, which the stream had now drawn out tight, and, satisfied that the stone to which it was tied would give him fair warning if he were fortunate enough to get a bite, he stepped back, picked up his rifle, and taking out his handkerchief, began to give it a rub here and a rub there, to add polish to the well-cleaned barrel, trigger-guard, and lock.
He took some time over this, but at last all was to his satisfaction; and laying down the piece on the rock by his side, he once more drew up his line, glancing up-stream, to see that his companion was similarly occupied, both finding the bait gone.
“I say, isn’t it aggravating?” said Dickenson. “I know what they are – sort of mullet-like fish with small mouths. Put on a smaller bait.”
“All right; good plan,” said Lennox.
“Wish to goodness I’d a few well-scoured English worms. I’d soon let the fish know!”
“Ah, I suppose they would be useful,” said Lennox, moulding up a piece of paste and trying to make it as hard as he could. “I say, Bob.”
“Hullo!”
“I’ve read that you can dig up great fat worms here in South Africa, eighteen inches long.”
“Dig one up, then, and I’ll cut it into eighteen inch-long baits.”
“I didn’t bring a spade with me, old fellow,” said Drew, smiling.
“Humph! Why didn’t you?”
“Same reason that you didn’t bring out some worms in your kit. I say, are you loaded?”
“Of course. You asked me before.”
Drew Lennox said no more, but glanced up-stream and down-stream, after starting his bait once again upon its swim. Then, after watching the rings uncoil till the line was tight, he swept the edge of the opposite bank some fifty yards away, carefully searching the clumps of trees and bushes, partly in search of a lurking enemy or spying Kaffir, taught now by experience always to be on the alert, and partly in the faint hope of catching a glimpse of something in the shape of game such as would prove welcome in the famine that he and his comrades were experiencing.
But, as he might have known in connection with game, their coming would have been quite sufficient to scare off the keen eared and eyed wild creatures; and he glanced down at his line again, thinking in a rather hopeless way that he and his friend might just as well have stayed in camp at the laager they had fortified with so much care.
His next act was to open the flap of his belt holster and carefully withdraw the revolver which now rarely left his side. After a short examination of the mechanism, this came in for a good rub and polish from the handkerchief before it was replaced.
“Nearly had one,” cried his companion, after a snatch at the line he held.
“Didn’t get a bite, did you?”
“Bite? A regular pull; but I was a bit too late. Why don’t you attend to your fishing instead of fiddle-faddling with that revolver? Pull up your line.”
Drew Lennox smiled doubtingly as he drew the leather cover of the holster over the stud before stooping to take hold of the line at his feet.
“I believe that was all fancy, Master Bobby,” he said. “If there have been any fish here, the crocodiles have cleared them out, or the Boers have netted them. It will be dry biscuit for us again to-night, or – My word!”
“Got one?” cried Dickenson, excited in turn, for his brother officer’s manner had suddenly changed from resigned indifference to eager action, as he felt the violent jerk given to his line by something or other that he had hooked.
“Got one? Yes; a monster. Look how he pulls.”
“Oh, be careful; be careful old chap!” cried Dickenson wildly, and he left the stone upon which he was standing to hurry to his friend’s side. “That’s a fifteen or twenty pound fish, and it means dinner for the mess.”
“I believe it’s a young crocodile,” said Lennox. “My word, how it tugs!”
“Play it – play it, man! Don’t pull, or you’ll drag the hook out of its jaws. Give it line.”
“Can’t; he has it all out.”
“Then you’ll have to follow it down-stream.”
“What! go into the water? No, thanks.”
“What! shrink from wading when you’ve got on a fish like that at the end of your line? Here, let me come.”
“No; I’ll play the brute and land him myself. But, I say, it’s a fine one of some kind; pulls like an eel. Look how it’s wagging its head from side to side.”
“Better let me come,” said Dickenson, whose face was scarlet from excitement.
“Get out!”
“I’ll never forgive you if you lose that fish, Lennox, old man.”
“Not going to lose him. Look; he has turned, and is coming up-stream;” for the line, which a few moments before was being violently jerked, suddenly grew slack.
“Gone! gone! gone!” cried Dickenson, with something of a sob in his throat.
“You be quiet!” said Drew. “I thought, it was only a bit of wood a few minutes ago.”
“Fish, of course, and the hook’s broken away.”
“Think so?” was the cool reply, as foot after foot of the line was drawn in. “I was beginning to be of the opinion that he had given it up as a bad job and was swimming right in to surrender.”
“No; I told you so. You’ve dragged the hook right out the fish’s jaws, and – Oh, I’m blessed!”
“With a good opinion of yourself, Bobby,” said Drew, laughing; for after softly hauling in about eight or ten yards of the stout water-cord he felt the fish again, when it gave one smart tug at the line and dashed up past the stone, running out all that had been recovered in a very few seconds.
Directly after there was a check and a jerk at the officer’s hand, while a cry escaped his lips as he let the line go and stooped to pick up his rifle.
“That’s no good,” began Dickenson.
“Quick, man! Down with you! – Ah! you’ve left your rifle. Cover!”
“Oh!” ejaculated Dickenson; and his jaw dropped, and he stood motionless, staring across the river at the sight before him on the other bank.
“Hands up! Surrender! You’re surrounded!” shouted a rough voice. “Drop that rifle, or we fire.”
Drew Lennox was bent nearly double in the act of raising it as these words were uttered, and he saw before him some twenty or thirty barrels, whose holders had covered him, and apparently only awaited another movement on the young officer’s part to shoot him down as they would have done a springbok.
“Oh dear!” groaned Dickenson; “to come to this!” And he was in the act of raising his hands in token of surrender when his comrade’s head caught him full in the chest and drove him back among the bushes which grew densely at the mouth of the gully.
Crack! crack! crack! crack! rang out half-a-dozen rifles, and Lennox, who as the consequence of his spring was lying right across his comrade, rolled off him.
“Hurt?” panted the latter in agonised tones.
“No. Now then, crawl after me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Creep up level with your rifle, and cover you while you get it.”
“Is it any use, old