Sedgwick was driving.  Jordan in a second caught his gun, and springing over the seat, said: 

“Drive on quick, Jim, and in ther meantime I’ll try ter entertain ther varmints.”

A Boer stepped out of the willows and raised his gun.  He never fired it, but threw up his hands and fell on his face.  A shot from Jordan’s gun had changed his calculations.

Three or four more shots were fired from the bush, but they did no harm.

Sedgwick had urged the team into a run, and they had just begun to hope the ambuscade had been passed, when three more Boers sprang out of the willows nearly opposite them and fired.

Jordan killed two of them in a moment, but the third one fired again, and the bullet struck Jordan’s left arm, disabling it and making a bad wound.

“Can you drive, think?” asked Sedgwick.

Jordan thought he could, and took the reins; Sedgwick picked up his gun.

Three more Boers just then appeared by the willows opposite.  Sedgwick could shoot as rapidly and as accurately as Jordan, and he cleared the field in a moment.

The road bent away from the stream soon after, back upon the table-land, and they were safe.  They stopped, and Sedgwick bound up Jordan’s arm.  The bone was not broken, and no great blood-vessel was seriously injured, but he had received a nasty flesh wound through the muscles of his fore-arm.

As they proceeded on their journey, Jordan said:  “That black guard as I first got a crack at hed been working for us two months.  He war at his work yesterday.  He put up this business, but how we sprised him!  Ther devil that jumped from the wagon when ther scrimmage begun war his runnin’ pard.  Wur it not lucky neither hoss war hit?”

They reached Port Natal in six days without further incident; but despite all the care that Sedgwick could give it, Jordan’s arm was badly inflamed and very painful when they reached the seashore.

No regular steamer was in port, but the “Pallas” was seen at anchor out in the roadstead.

Sedgwick engaged a boat, and with Jordan pulled out to the steamer.

McGregor was delighted at their coming, took them on board and said:  “Now, boys, we will have a night of it.”

But Sedgwick said:  “First, Captain, I want your surgeon to look at Jordan’s arm.”

“Why, of course,” said McGregor.  The doctor was called.  He examined the arm, then tested the man’s temperature, and finally said: 

“The wound is nothing in itself.  Under normal conditions it would heal in a fortnight, but Mr. Jordan’s system is run down.  He has a low fever on him now, and needs immediate treatment and careful nursing.”

This was a new situation, and one that troubled Sedgwick exceedingly.  He was silent for a few seconds, and then looking up, said: 

“Captain McGregor, where do you go next?”

“I was just going to pull out for Calcutta, Hong Kong, Yokohama and San Francisco,” he replied.