THE BATTLE.

It was beginning to get rather exciting. The big gun, just below, had
roared forth its message, and the spectators on the kopje had their
field-glasses glued to their eyes, as they watched the progress of the
great projectile. Splash! there it was. A cloud of dust flew up from
the red-brown veldt, away in the distance, but harmlessly. Then, hard
by where it had fallen, a British gun barked, and, immediately, a huge
mass of the earth's surface, bitten into, leaped in mid-air on the
further side of the river, falling back in great chunks--clods and
stones--and gyrations of dust. Further along the line, another gun
spoke, then another and another, as though passing the word along the
vast length, until the farthest voices, miles away, sounded quite
faintly. Then ever and again would arise the crackling roll of
rifle-fire.

The sun was now well up over the eastern horizon, sweeping his joyous
morning rays in golden warmth over this warring drama of blood and of
wounds and of death. Cleaving the great expanse of red-brown veldt the
river bed, bush-fringed, with high muddy banks, yawned; and away further
down, the clustering buildings of the little township, and the straight
thread of the railway line tailing away on either side. Beyond the said
banks, lines of trenches, where lay the Boer riflemen, grim and earnest,
awaiting their turn, which would soon come.

Again the big gun below loosed off, with a tremendous reverberation.
Those on the kopje, watching the missile, descried a certain amount of
confusion where it struck, a scurrying or scattering behind its redoubt.
Heads went up eagerly from behind the Boer earthworks to watch the
result, but little or no remark escaped the lips of the stolid burghers.
Then the English battery barked in return, and the vast thud of the
lyddite shell striking one end of the earthwork, blowing up the same
great cloud of dust and fragments, reached the spectators with something
like the tremor of an earthquake. At the same time the latter could see
that, where it had fallen, several forms were lying, while others
bending over them were trying to draw them out of the dust and _debris_.

Colvin Kershaw's hand shook slightly as he lowered his glasses, and his
face wore the look of one who has gazed upon a peculiarly horrifying
sight. And well might it, for the projectile had done its work with
fell and awful completeness, and the powerful lens afforded him a view
of