I ordered
to proceed with the convoy; the second, consisting of a hundred and
fifty men with the Maxim-Nordenfeldt, I took under my own command, and
set out with them in the direction of Paardenberg's Drift.

My spies had informed me that there were some fifty or sixty English
troops posted about eight miles from the spot where we had captured the
convoy. We made our way towards them, and when we were at a distance of
about three thousand yards, I sent a little note to their officer,
asking him to surrender. It was impossible for his troops to escape, for
they found themselves threatened on three sides.

The sun had just gone down when my despatch-rider reached the English
camp; and the officer in command was not long in sending him his reply,
accompanied by an orderly.

"Are you General De Wet?" the orderly asked me.

"I am," replied I.

"My officer in command," he said in a polite but determined voice,
"wishes me to tell you that we are a good hundred men strong, that we
are well provided with food and ammunition, and that we hold a strong
position in some houses and kraals. Every moment we are expecting ten
thousand men from Belmont, and we are waiting here with the sole purpose
of conducting them to Lord Roberts."

I allowed him to speak without interrupting him; but when he had
finished, I answered him in quite as determined a voice as he had used
to me.

"I will give you just enough time to get back and to tell your officer
in command that, if he does not surrender at once, I shall shell him and
storm his position. He will be allowed exactly ten minutes to make up
his mind--then the white flag must appear."

"But where is your gun?" the orderly asked. In reply I pointed to the
Maxim-Nordenfeldt, which stood a few hundred paces behind us, surrounded
by some burghers.

"Will you give us your word of honour," he asked me when he caught sight
of the gun, "not to stir from your position till we have got ten miles
away? That is the only condition on which we will abandon our
positions."

I again allowed him to finish, although his demand filled me with the
utmost astonishment. I asked myself what sort of men this English
officer imagined the Boer Generals to be.

"I demand unconditional surrender," I then said. "I give you ten minutes
from the moment you dismount on arriving at your camp; when those ten
minutes have passed I fire."

He slung round, and galloped back to his camp, the stones flying from
h