The hoofs of the grey mare fell like the soft thud of a hammer in the sand, regular and precise.  Presently the sound and the motion lulled his senses.  The rage and humiliation grew less, his face cooled.  His head, which had been bent, lifted and his face turned upwards to the stars.  The influence of an African night was on him.  None that has not felt it can understand it so cold, so sweet, so full of sleep, so stirring with an underlife.  Many have known the breath of the pampas beyond the Amazon; the soft pungency of the wattle blown across the salt-bush plains of Australia; the friendly exhilaration of the prairie or the chaparral; the living, loving loneliness of the desert; but yonder on the veld is a life of the night which possesses all the others have, and something of its own besides; something which gets into the bones and makes for forgetfulness of the world.  It lifts a man away from the fret of life, and sets his feet on the heights where lies repose.

The peace of the stars crept softly into Rudyard’s heart as he galloped gently on to overtake his men.  His pulses beat slowly once again, his mind regained its poise.  He regretted the oath he uttered, as he left Jasmine; he asked himself if, after all, everything was over and done.

How good the night suddenly seemed!  No, it was not all over—­unless, unless, indeed, in this fight coming on with the daybreak, Fate should settle it all by doing with him as it had done with so many thousands of others in this war.  But even then, would it be all over?  He was a primitive man, and he raised his face once more to the heavens.  He was no longer the ample millionaire, sitting among the flesh-pots; he was a lean, simple soldier eating his biscuit as though it were the product of the chef of the Cafe Voisin; he was the fighter sleeping in a blanket in the open; he was a patriot after his kind; he was the friend of his race and the lover of one woman.

Now he drew rein.  His regiment was just ahead.  Daybreak was not far off, and they were near the enemy’s position.  In a little while, if they were not surprised, they would complete a movement, take a hill, turn the flank of the foe, and, if designed supports came up, have the Boers at a deadly disadvantage.  Not far off to the left of him and his mounted infantry there were coming on for this purpose two batteries of artillery and three thousand infantry—­Leary’s brigade, which had not been in the action the day before at Wortmann’s Drift.

But all depended on what he was able to do, what he and his hard-bitten South Africans could accomplish.  Well, he had no doubt.  War was part chance, part common sense, part the pluck and luck of the devil.  He had ever been a gambler in the way of taking chances; he had always possessed ballast even when the London life had enervated, had depressed him; and to men of his stamp pluck is a commonplace:  it belongs as eyes and hands and feet belong.