a star in the sky-and I lost my way almost at the start: the road was as black as the grass, - you could not see a yard either way. However, I picked it up luckily, and got down the hill towards the town. Between us lay a nasty spruit, passable only at certain places on account of deep mud; and we made for one of them by the telegraph-poles; but even these failed me in the darkness, and for a second time I found that I had lost my way. I knew the spruit was on the right, and so inclined that way till I came upon the dim glint of the water close below me, at the place I thought I was making for. Towards it I went, and at once tumbled down a small precipice, only just escaping the filthy water at the bottom. It was not the "drift" after all; still it was one, though a bad one. My tumble, however, stopped the men; and I got up, and felt about till I found a place they could come down, when we floundered across on to the small knoll which lies at the far end of the town. Across it we went. I had an idea there was a big drain cut through it: but time was valuable; so we chanced the drain, and soon saw a white house in front which we knew. From it we could turn and steer a straight course for the Court-house, where the rest of the party was waiting. They had hardly fallen in when it began to rain-a cold, sharp drizzle-in our faces, looking as if it would continue; and it was touch and go about turning back. But we were wet already, and the worst bit was done; so after explaining to the men what they had to do (no commands could be given), we moved off.

Stumbling as little as possible, hardly breathing-the old game of silence over again-we stole along the road out into the open veldt -the only sound a low "hush"when

some unfortunate coughed

On our

above his breath. It seemed a long way, though really little over a mile, and the ruts were deep and very crooked. I began to think the rope would never trip me up. It was raining bitterly in addition, but walking kept us warm. left was one of the forts, not a hundred yards distant; yet we passed it unperceived, although a couple of sentries were on the look-out for us. There was barely light enough to see the track we were on; but after a bit the colour of the soil changed, getting black, and then the ruts came in handy. We led by stooping down continually, and literally feeling our way. At last the welcome rope tripped me up, and I was all but on my nose. The men halted where they were, till an officer standing on the road-side told them off one by one, when they gradually formed a line of

skirmishers and advanced.

What had been cold and wet on the road became doubly so in the grass; and the men's feet brushing through it made a dreadful noise. We had 300 paces to go, and hardly any breath left to count them with; so it was a relief to find them gone and the final spot reached. But here the difficulty of making night attacks was shown. The movement had been simple enough; the points had been carefully laid down; and everything seemed to have gone exactly as it ought. And yet here we were, as it turned out, with our backs just where our faces should have been. Just as the line was extended, and the men were going to lie down, one of the officers came up and said that he was sure something had gone wrong,-that we were facing to our rear. "Impossible!" I said.

"Well, there is Stander's Kop staring us in the face." And so it was just visible against the sky, its flat top cutting the grey dawn unmistakably. An

hour before we had left this behind, and now we were facing it. Never was any one more puzzled; worse -one felt almost hopelessly lost. There was little time for deliberation, light was growing in the east, what had to be done must be done quickly. So I faced the men about, passing the word in whispers, and went straight to our rear for two hundred yards. Luckily the move was the right one, and we hit off the edge of the valley just where we wanted, the men still facing to their rear, now the front.

The grass was almost up to our knees, and when the men lay down covered them entirely. Strict orders had been issued against raising the head; firing was to be expected from our own men, and no one was

to peep when it came. Great-coats were not allowed-they made us bigger marks for the enemy; we lay down just as we were in that cold sloppy grass, and tried to keep

warm.

I

What a weary wait it was! remember shivering quite audibly, and thinking that the men would hear me, and say I was funking it. One man began to snore and was poked awake with a neighbour's ramrod. The rain had stopped, and the grey in the east began to show streaks of red; but with the dawn came a bitter wind, and it grew colder still.

Curiously enough, although lying in an ambush into which the enemy were at any minute expected to be drawn, the thought of it hardly crossed my mind; all that was there was the wretched cold, and the longing for a dry change of clothes.

Still the day crept on, the objects around lost their indistinct ness and happily showed that we were just in the right place. About a thousand yards to our right front was a solitary house occupied by the Dutch; exactly in front the

smoke from their laager rose; the slope between was vacant; the expected vedettes were not there. It was quite light enough for the mounted men to attack, but all was as still as death; the sun would be up before there was a shot fired, and we wanted to begin and be off, anything better than this horrible cold.

But we waited on, and the sun rose, and the birds began to twitter, and still no sign. I began to think something had miscarried, and that we might as well go home. Never was patience more tried.

I

At length, not far from seven o'clock, when we had been four hours at it, a welcome shot rang out on our right, then a few more, answered faintly, followed by a volley waking up the sleeping scene; then more volleys crashing across the veldt, and startling the friends we were waiting for. could see the hill over the laager black with figures running out to see what was up; others were after their horses out grazing. A couple rode out first, crossing our front; then came more in threes and fours streaming across the slope, a party of a dozen heading towards our right. Straight on they came; I thought they would ride over us; but the sly fellows stopped short of us by fifty yards, just hiding in the valley where they dismounted, and we could hear them jabbering in Dutch, "Wait here, and we shall catch them." This was indeed ambush on ambush.

Still the firing kept up briskly on our flank, the mounted men were making it hot for the Dutch in that direction, and they buzzed off towards it like wasps that have been poked up by a mischievous boy.

My attention thus far had been taken up with what was going on upon the right; I had hardly turned

my head since the fight began. It was lucky that something just then made me look round. What met my eyes as I peered over the grass stalks was startling. A big Dutchman on a horse, with his rifle ready, was walking slowly along our front, looking at us, but evidently not seeing us. He was a fine man with a thick, dark beard, a brown coat; and he was also excellently mounted. Beyond him, in a patch of green, was a man on a grey horse, well known to us by sight as one of their most energetic generals, with some fifty mounted Boers behind him. Another instant and we should be discovered.

Lifting my head the least bit I whispered in a voice delightfully stagey, to the men nearest me"Look out men, point blank, and straight in front-readywhen I shout, up on the knee and let them have it-Fire!"

The Dutchman saw me as I rose in the grass, he heard my voice shout out the order, and bending double over his horse's neck, rode for dear life. Crack went a dozen rifles after him, but he gallopped on unhurt, and in a few seconds reached the valley in safety. The men, cold and numbed, fired wildly; it was as much as they could manage to hold the rifles, and starting suddenly from the grass they did not know what they were firing at. For many a day that Dutchman's face will haunt me: never was death more plainly written on any man's face than on his.

All this took place in half a minute; all the men were on the knee now, and firing steadily at the man on the grey horse and the men with him. Several loose horses were gallopping away, their riders on the ground; our fire must have been deadly at the distance. Straight for us dashed the troop, the grey horse leading, and I thought they would try to charge

us. But they rode for the valley, in which they were under cover, horses and men, and in a marvellously short space out of the long grass fringing it came a line of puffs of smoke, about a hundred yards in front of us-puffs, too, from the right, where our friends were in waiting to "catch them." To all of which we replied promptly, aiming at the puffs as they blew off, putting them out, sometimes shifting them a little as it got too hot behind them; bullets whizzing fast all round, and no one hit as yet. Their laager was now saddled up, and a great cloud of men were collecting in support of their advanced parties. We had done what we came out for, and had caught them fairly. Nothing else remained but to get the men safely away before they could bring their whole force against us.

So one-half of the men retired skirmishing, the other half remaining on the knee facing the Dutch, and keeping down their fire, till the first line had gone back a little way, when they in turn took up the fire and the front line fell back.

It was really a pretty sight: the sun's rays slanting across the grass, glistening with raindrops; the red coats,-many in wideawakes, which showed less in work like this than the helmets, walking along as steadily as on the parade ground, dropping on the knee and sending out a sharp crack; the puffs of smoke all round and very general, hanging heavy in the damp air; one young officer with his cap off made the picture look quite like a battle-piece. A fat-faced boy in the Ordnance Department, out without leave, I fancy, stuck close to me and fired most steadily, his stolid face looking into mine for orders, adjusting his sight to the distance I gave him, taking deliberate aim, and after firing watching where the

bullet hit, as cool and as fat as if it were all greens and bacon.

Another thing that forced itself upon one was the noisy way in which bullets, fired at you, do their work. They are so spiteful, even when they hit the ground, sounding like a boy's cheek when he gets a good sound box on the ear-they dig into it as if trying which can get in the deepest, and fling up clouds of dust as if in scorn of the fellows just before them. Those in the air are always in such a hurry, they can't stop a second, but buzz, and scream, and vanish singing in the distance. Those that hit men do it quietly as if ashamed; a poor fellow lies on the grass writhing, and you know that a bullet has done it, that is all.

We had kept up this game for about twenty minutes, sometimes retiring, halting now and then to shut up their fire, when we heard firing on our left, and some bullets came in hastily, crossing the others, and making the men fire at this new attack.

"Don't fire," I shouted; "they are our own men." I had put a party on this very hill, expecting the enemy might bother us from it.

"No, sir, they's Boers," replied the fat-faced one, and as he spoke down fell a man beside me, the first one hit.

It was a bit nasty. That they were Boers was now plain; how they got there was a mystery. I could see about twenty-five of them blazing away, the bullets hitting all about us. So we faced round and went at the place. Four hundred yards I gave as the distance, and it was just the thing. The Dutch are capital shots at buck, but let the animal have a rifle and know how to use it, and they will go without venison for that day.

Their fire slackened before we had gone a hundred yards, the Boers

skulking under stones. Then they came out, collecting in a group, firing hardly at all, almost stupefied as it seemed. Then after a minute or more they ran behind the koppie where their horses were, and rode away. Several pools of blood upon the koppie told us a little later of the cause of their stupidity.

This was the last of it, bullets from long ranges dropped about, and we counted about 600 horsemen on the hill which we had left. These had collected within the hour from their posts many miles apart, thus showing what excellent organisation they possessed. I drew off the men, the wounded man refusing to be carried-he was shot through the arm-and the whole laughing and telling their own stories until we got under cover of the fire of one of the forts, the one we had passed in the dark, its garrison on tip-toe on the parapet getting what view they could of our battle. A quick walk home to the fort, a cup of coffee, and a change of clothes left us none the worse for our outing, wet and dismal as it had been.

This skirmish taught the Dutch a lesson-it sent them back another mile, made them respect our vedettes, and mistrust every patch of grass that grew. When we met them on the proclamation of peace, they admitted that we had knocked over eleven of their own men; but, as I said to the man on the grey horse," we did not get you."

"No, meinheer; but I tried very hard for you." A pleasant bit of rejoinder, showing that even warfare has its amenities.

One fine day we saw two fine bullocks strolling towards the "drift," followed by a lot of Boers at a distance; but these not daring to come within range, we soon had the pleasure of seeing a party of our own men cross the river, and drive them in as spoils of war. Excellent beef

they made, the marks on them being those of a noted rebel who was known to be shooting at us.

A frequent cause of suspicion was the display of lights at night in the town. All lights had to be out when the bugle sounded "lights out," but there were lights that continually defied orders; and, as it sometimes seemed, were answered by others on the hills round, though these turned out more than once to be only a setting star magnified in the sentry's imagination into a signal light. That traitors were in our midst I think was undoubted, but they kept so quiet that we never discovered one. We occasionally sent out after these same lights, only once catching the offender in the act, when with all due caution a party crept down towards one that flashed distinctly enough, to put all doubt out of the question. Without the slightest noise they stole along, over walls and ditches, the tell-tale light always in front, till they could see that it came from a house in the very centre of the town; the ground was level, and they quickened their and ran it to earth at last, to find the " signal light" came through a loop-hole in the courthouse, on the other side of which the gallant captain who defended it lay reading in bed.

pace,

more

Another night I was roused out to look at some rockets thrown up by the relieving column. Excitement was intense. Cries of "There they go!" "There's another!" were heard all round,-with remarks of the good things in store to-morrow for the poor hungry fellows. The rockets were only a star rising, but all day I was beset by the townspeople with questions about the column, and the news the rockets had sent in.

Heavy rain set in towards the end of February, making sad breaches in our walls, and giving us plenty

of work at putting them up again. One particularly rainy morning the mist cleared for a little, and our vedette found himself close to a Kafir who was trudging along the road towards town. On being questioned he showed a a Dutch pass, and a letter which he was taking to his master in the main laager, and on being told that he was going all right, followed the volunteer quite unsuspecting. Soon, however, a mounted infantry man wearing a red coat rode up, and the Kafir discovered his mistake with a loud yell, thinking that instant death. would be his lot. On seeing the houses of Standerton he was fairly aghast, the Boers having told him that it was destroyed, and all the English killed. As a specimen of Dutch letter-writing the note is worth copying:

"LOVING HUSBAND, -We are all quite well, for which we cannot thank the Lord enough, and hope to hear the same from my loving husband; and if it is otherwise with you, it would grieve me exceedingly much, loving husband. I have no news to write you, only that I long very much, my loving husband, to see you. Sammie can walk already, and the children long very much for their papa. Dear, I send you tobacco and one loaf of bread. Dear, everything is all right, and papa sends you a man. Dear, I wish you God's blessing and health. Now I shall close with the pen, but never with wife and children." the heart. Farewell, from your loving

And these were the people who day and night tried to kill us.

Amongst the garrison was a colour-sergeant, somewhat of a fireeater. His animosity against the Dutch was intense, and he longed to do something to satisfy it. His wrath was directed principally against Stander's Kop-it was his company which held it in check. For many a day they had endured the taunts of the Dutch upon it. Several times he hinted to me that