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that he was willing to ride and fetch it, his object being to put it in a mine under one of the threatened houses. The mysterious one rode for it without success, the store keeper not liking to sell it with the Boers all about; but he sent us word of the concentration at Laing's Nek-information I was able to send down to the General through the Free State; so the dynamite turned up for a better use than was intended.

The more tragical events of the siege began earlier than was expected-indeed, before it was entirely declared. Our scouts had found three men stowed away in a house beyond the camp who could give no satisfactory account of themselves. Two of them, black men, were remanded for further inquiry; the third, a half-caste, dressed as a European, said he was willing to join the volunteers-and something being known of his previous history, he was forthwith taken on as a trooper. When examined by the Landdrost, he gave some fairly useful information about the enemy, and altogether promised to be an acquisition. The one thing against him was his face low-browed, sensual, with puffy cheeks, and a hang-dog expression really repulsive; otherwise, he was inoffensive enough. That night he slept in an empty house in the town; next morning his body was found in it, the skull driven in with a pickaxe, the throat tightly wound round with a strip of bullock's hide, the face shamefully lacerated, the murderers having dragged him through a window by which he had probably tried to escape. No clue could be found to the murderers; but four Makatees, natives of the lowest type, were arrested on suspicion, of whom

more anon.

The excitement in town, which had been on the increase ever since

my arrival, appeared to culminate in this murder. People looked at each other, and whispered below the breath that the Dutch had done it to punish the man for telling what he had told; and neighbour looked at neighbour half in doubt that the other was not in the secret. Volunteers came in but slowly-each one had pressing business that prevented him from joining. The Landdrost, his office barricaded, his clerk shouldering a rifle, and the townsfolk pestering him for information which he had not, was in despair. So I determined to take the matter into my own hands-at least I was strong enough to enforce authority, and one head, however small, is better than none at all. Directing the Landdrost to convene a meeting of all the civilians, I got up as martial an appearance as possible, called one or two senior officers to back me up, and, walking up before the assemblage, proclaimed martial law. "In the name of her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, whose commission I bear, and by virtue of the power intrusted to me by Sir G. Pomeroy Colley, the Governor of this province, I proclaim the town and the district of Standerton to be under martial law. This, gentlemen," I continued, "gives me absolute power to enforce my orders, and I shall do so. If necessary, I shall imprison-if occasion requires it, I shall shoot-any one disobeying me." Here a rather unfortunate climax to my heroics ensued: one of the crowd, somewhat the worse for liquor, took a step to the front, clapped his hands together feebly, as if to back me up, and sang out in a voice maudlin and shaky, "Bravo, major! I say bravo! Give it to them; and quite right too."

However, they saw that I was in earnest, and before an hour was over, every able-bodied man had signed the roll of volunteers, and I

had the satisfaction of seeing the moody faces clear, and a more hopeful spirit growing up. They felt, at least, they had some one to look up to in difficulties, and during the three months martial law reigned in Standerton, only one case calling for exceptional rigour occurred.

Hardly had the martial law question been settled when one of international law cropped up in the person of a German explorer and traveller, who sent me a note demanding an interview. I found him in bed in the soda-water manufactory of the town, evidently very seedy-a fine-looking, intelligent man, but much disturbed in mind. He wished to proceed on his way; he was laid up by temporary indisposition; he had been obliged to leave his hotel by the troops who now held it; he was a German, and as such he protested against such treatment-it was against international law, and he should lay it before the tribunal of nations. I said I hoped he would, and would summon me to attend, as that would take me out of the Transvaal; but at present that was impossible, as the Dutch would not let us start from the town; but if he would do a little doctoring for me among the troops in case of many being wounded, I should take it as a great favour, being rather short of medical men. So we talked it out, till in the end we parted the best of friends; how, I do not quite understand, for I do not think he took in more than half I said. However, the knotty point was amicably settled, and he remained with me throughout the siege without another complaint; in fact, when he left on peace being proclaimed, he was most profuse in his offers to take down messages or parcels to my friends.

Every now and then a mounted man would gallop in with news of the Boer advance. Now a meeting

was being held three miles away, to discuss the attack; now their vanguard was approaching, and would be on us before we knew it. Again, a couple of vedettes had been captured, and only escaped through the persuasions of an old man who knew them. A farmer who had come in from his farm, came up and whispered that his men were going to the Free State, and would take a letter for me. So the letter was written, and given with much secrecy to the farmer, who sewed it up in the boy's coat, to turn up, as I heard long after, all right; as indeed the Boers heard too, and threatened my farmer's wife for having sent it. And that was the last we got through for nearly two months.

And still came the messengers, speaking of the menaced attackvery trying, and only to be borne by reason of the amount of work on hand to meet it when it came. And done the work was, the men toiling with a will: no red coats nowshirt-sleeves and wideawakes, any costume; any time for meals; filling bags with earth, piling them into their place; sappers cutting holes in the roofs of the defended houses, for the smoke to escape by if the firing grew hot; storing water and provisions; banking up the breaches always falling through in our earthen pit; and between whiles more messengers with news of the attack. This waiting for it was far worse than all which followed.

At luncheon, however, on the 29th December, a report came in that some hundreds of Boers had collected in a valley three miles away, and showed signs of coming on. So I got out my mounted men, some twenty-five strong-they had only just been formed, and numbered twice that before long-and sent them out to reconnoitre. They looked a serviceable little knot of men as they crossed the "drift"

a

and rode along the road towards Newcastle, their centre led by a fine soldier, not many years before sergeant-major in the 16th Lancers; ahead a couple riding slowly; on either flank "look-out" men, perhaps 400 yards away. The small party rode steadily along, keeping their distances as on parade, slanting up the sward towards the sky-line, nothing right or left of them, all open veldt for miles and miles, till they were mere dots against the green. In camp all was still; the men had finished their work, and were lying down; of the officers a couple had ridden to the town, two more were a mile away picking peaches in a deserted garden, when of a sudden-and my heart gave a great beat-out of a fold of ground that lay behind them, and on their left, grew out all at once a great cloud of horsemen, galloping, coming towards us as it seemed. Then they caught sight of the scout on the left, not far away, and changed their course a little, making for him, he galloping for dear life, not towards the drift," where were friends and safety, but right ahead, slanting towards his right, waving his carbine and shouting, we could hear it faintly, to warn the troop of their danger. Another minute and they heard him and turned, and with backs bent, and faces towards the "drift," galloped their hardest, just a race for life. It was touch and go. The Boers were nearer to the river, but their mass told against them, and our men gained a trifle, a few well mounted of the Dutch showing ahead, and threatening to cut them off. Then those puffs of smoke we got to know so well, and distant shots, and shouts growing more and more distinct-that awful race for life seemed to last for hours, when indeed it was all over with in ten minutes, and I was almost powerless to help.

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We got our men into a koppie, the point nearest to the "drift" which they were making for, and cleared a space of half a mile round it with our rifles-once within that circle and they were safe. The Boers held back when they heard our bullets; and our fellows rode in, heads drooping, horses done up completely, and five of their number on the ground. Then, balked of the rest, the Boers jumped off and opened a long line of fire, replied to gallantly, the tall man leading them dismounting, and on his knee delivering fire, when the Boer firing at him flung back and shot no more. Two wounded men of ours lay by the "drift," holding their arms up for help and feebly crying to us, and it was a weary time to wait ere we could cross and bring them in.

The noble fellow who had gone to warn the troop lay dead beyond. For months we hoped that he had been taken prisoner; but when the ground was cleared and we got out across that fatal field, we found a skeleton in a shallow grave on the hillside, a skull at one end, two stockinged feet protruding from the other; a horse beside the grave shot through the head and another facing it a hundred yards farther on; and close to the turfs that covered up the bones a coat, edged with red, faded now, the badge of our volunteers, and one we knew was his-all that was left of a brave soldier.

We buried him in the churchyard among the rest lying in that poor spot, a fort frowning close above, and half-a-dozen mounds to mark where others lay-his bones followed by every man, soldier or civilian, in the place and fired our volleys over them, presenting arms, and sounding one last salute upon the bugles: as the townsfolk said when they came back,-" It was a splendid sight."

The Boers, some 400 of them, missing the mounted men, rode on towards us, and dismounting under a ridge across the river, about 700 yards distant, opened a furious fire. How the bullets did whiz and fly! I had come back from the koppie, now no longer wanted, and stood on a little plateau facing the Dutch, with the fort in rear, from which the men, running to their places, began to fire.

"Ping" came the bullets hurt ling through the air, plugging the earth and sending up small clouds of dust; overhead whistling, singing, as they passed in their great hurry; the hillside opposite white with smoke, dotted with dark things-Dutchmen lying down. My bugler close behind me, waiting in readiness to sound; a bullet dropped into his boot quite at the toe "Glad that wasn't you, sir," was all he coolly said. But it was hot, a little hot. Although there is something not unpleasant in a bullet fired in anger, when the blood is up they don't sound so viciously as at other times. But still it was too hot.

So I got as many men as could be spared and led them at the Boers, creeping and running, taking what cover there was. I remember some of the men got in behind a tent now lying flat-a fold of linen to stop a bullet; but then the British soldier is very credulous. And we crept down still nearer, and found a wall, part of the old cattle laager, and pointing over it, let the Dutch have it merrily. "Fire a bit higher, lads: you're underneath them; can't you see them striking the bank?"-and they fired a bit higher, and we saw it caused some slight commotion, and one of our friends here and there pulled in his horse and mounted him, and galloped off; and then more followed, and here and there one gave a funny wave,

both hands at once, lying down again quite flat, only he did not fire any more. Sometimes a horse lay kicking, and the Boers about him got farther back and did not come again, till one by one, by twos and threes, by big black lots, the cloud of them melted away, leaving only a dot here and there with its puff of smoke. But these died out at last, and looking at our watch we found that we had been listening to the bullets for an hour; it was just that time since they had missed our mounted men, and it had not seemed ten minutes. Time does fly so fast when occupiedpleasantly or otherwise.

After the siege was over they told us they had intended to filter across the river and attack the town bodily; but finding our mounted men between them, they had to ride for them-and so the town was saved, and we got very little damage.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and every one turned up. The peach-gatherers, hearing the firing, left them and came in first; the volunteers in hot haste; a crowd of blacks, quite a hundred of them, crawling on their stomachs, and making a rush past the sentries into the fort, where they hid behind boxes, and were not to be got out by threats or entreaties till the firing was over.

Thinking a fresh attempt was to follow, we got in some cold beef and a few bottles of beer, and ate a hasty dinner inside, the volunteers accepting an offer to finish the fragments most willingly, and doing so to the last crumb.

But the Dutch contented themselves with occupying a koppie above us, across the river, and pelting us with a few stray shots, while they established their patrols all round us like the leaden horses in the race-game of children.

Night fell at last, and with it

fresh anxiety. Half the men were put on the walls till midnight, the other half in relief till three in the early morning, when all turned out in readiness for our enemies-and that was kept up for eighty-eight days. An extract from the diary I kept during the siege will show better than anything how things went with us during the time. There was little to vary the entries from day to day, except that to wards the end of February the fire from the Dutch became much more slack, owing either to want of ammunition, or to the discovery that it was only so much waste against such obstinate fellows.

"Dec. 30th.-At daybreak, parties observed on koppies across the river tracing and marking out something, apparently a fort. 7 A.M.-Vedettes fired on by rebels crossing the 'drift' below the camp. A party of Boers occupied Stander's Kop, and another large body was reported advancing on the Heidelberg road. Brought in Volunteer Anderson wounded yesterday, and occupied the 'drift' in strength. 8 A.M.-200 advancing against the town, but passed, and went behind koppie north of it. 10.30 A. M.-Sent patrol out south to find what force was holding ground in that direction— supported them with skirmishers; returned, having seen nothing. 1 P.M.-Party 60 strong advanced from koppie down donga, and opened fire, bullets falling over laager; we returned it with 'sharpshooters,' and soon silenced it. 2 P.M.-Body 60 strong advancing on west of town, turned off and passed to Stander's Kop. Continual fire from stony koppie and donga; two mules shot; returned fire with sharpshooters,' and silenced it. 5P.M.-Enemy opened fire from koppie south of Stander's Kop, the bullets striking huts and ricocheting over laager; sent out some skirmishers and silenced it. One man hit in the face with splinter; myself on the back of right thigh with nearly spent ball. Midnight.-Volley fired into laager from south, answered by us and soon silenced; three mules shot."

months. No wonder that we got tired of it, or that I had to punish the men at times for unduly exposing themselves to fire; in three months one gets wonderfully callous to a bullet.

On the 4th January I made my first essay against an enemy in the open. There was a rocky hill, Stander's Kop, a little over a mile from the fort, which the Dutch had occupied, and from which their fire began to be somewhat galling; so I resolved to have a turn at it, and show them two could play at that game.

On the night before, I called for volunteers, and got together thirty, all to be ready at 3A.M. next morning. It was my first attempt in command against the enemy, and I confess that I felt a bit anxious; failure meant disaster, and I did not know but what my head might desert me at the critical moment. It is easy enough to go out under orders, but to be yourself the head and tail means more than people think; and I did think, but nothing would have turned me from my purpose now I had determined to attempt it.

That night went slowly, and I slept but little; indeed at two o'clock, when a man came in to call me, four of us lay on hospital stretchers in an open shed in the fort. I was only too glad to find the time had come.

It was a cold, damp morning, fairly dark, and my thirty volunteers of last night were none too smart in turning out. It looked better business then than now, but I got them fallen in outside after some delay. Then I found every sergeant in the garrison had fallen in too, and at the last moment I had to send them back, keeping only two, -rather an unpleasant task. Then I explained to the men what I was about. We were to advance in column for a certain distance, when

And so on for the next three all would silently extend on a given

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