ry within twenty-four
hours. Mrs. Fraser was delighted to see me, and reported the Boers all
departed after a temporary occupation, so there I settled down for
another period of weary waiting.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] The Boers used better ammunition later.

[27] Boer national flag.

[28] Clergyman.

[29] Mr. Murchison was shut up in the gaol awaiting Lord Roberts's
confirmation of his sentence. When Eloff succeeded in entering Mafeking
many months later, the former was liberated with the other prisoners,
and given a rifle to fire on the Boers, which he did with much effect. I
believe he was afterwards taken to a gaol in the Isle of Wight, but I do
not know if his life-sentence is still in force.

[30] This gentleman on a later occasion again attempted to leave
Mafeking on horseback, and was taken prisoner by the Boers and sent to
Pretoria, leaving the _Daily Mail_ without a correspondent in Mafeking.
At the request of that paper I then undertook to send them cables about
the siege.

CHAPTER VIII

BETRAYED BY A PIGEON--THE BOERS COME AT LAST

"For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which
has wings shall tell the matter."--ECCLES. x. 20.

The day after my arrival at Setlagoli some natives came in with
apparently well-authenticated news of an English victory near Vryburg.
They also asserted that the line was already being relaid to Maribogo,
and that the railway servants had returned to that station. I drove over
at once to prove the truth of their statements; of course, I found they
were all false, except the fact of the station-master having returned to
the barricaded and desolate station. I discovered him sitting
disconsolately at the door of his ruined house, gloomily perusing
"Nicholas Nickleby." On returning home, I was delighted to find
interesting letters from Mr. and Mrs. Rochfort Maguire, who were shut up
in Kimberley, as was also Mr. Rhodes. The latter had despatched them by
a boy, ordered to continue his journey to Mafeking with other missives
and also with some colonial newspapers. These latter, only about a
fortnight old, we fairly spelled through before sending them on. They
were already so mutilated by constant unfolding that in parts they were
scarcely decipherable, but none the less very precious. Two days later
arrived a representative of Reuter's Agency, whom I shall call Mr. P. He
had come by rail and horseback straight from Cape Town and he was also
under