every detail, of writhings and agony and terrible mutilation.

"Guess you're not used to it, Kershaw," said a voice at his side. "Made
me look sick, too, first time I saw it. You ever see a fight before?"

The speaker was an American war-correspondent "doing" the battle from
within the Boer lines.

"Yes, I served in Matabeleland," answered Colvin. "But with niggers
it's different. Then, you see, we hated the brutes so because they'd
butchered a lot of women and children at the outbreak of the rebellion.
Even with them, though, you didn't see such a wholesale bust-up as that.
Faugh!"

"Well, there's worse to come yet. Here, you take a draw at this"--
tendering him a large field flask. Colvin accepted, and the nip of
excellent Boer brandy just steadied his nerves, which had been
momentarily shaken.

"You try a little, Commandant," went on the owner of the flask.

But Commandant Andries Botma declined. He seldom touched stimulants, he
said, and now, if he did so at the beginning of a fight, would it not be
said that he required a dose of what the English call "Dutch courage"--
with a whimsical look at Colvin, at whom he was poking sly fun?

The quondam emissary to the Colonial Boers, among whom we first made his
acquaintance, was no mere frothy stump orator. The name by which he was
deferentially known among these--"The Patriot"--he had subsequently done
everything to justify. He was not the man to preach others into peril
he dare not face himself, and when his crusade had culminated in an
appeal to arms, he had always been among the foremost where hard knocks
were given or received. Now he was in command of an important wing of
General Cronje's force.

A mighty engine of destruction or defence this--its lines extending for
miles and miles--waiting there grim, dogged, resolute, to give battle to
the richest, most resourceful, and determined Power in the world. A
terrible force to reckon with; its impelling factor, a calm fanaticism
born of an unswerving conviction of the justice of the cause and the
sure and certain alliance of Heaven.

In the simplicity of his veldt attire, with little or nothing to mark
him out from those whom he commanded, Andries Botma looked even more a
born leader of men than when last we saw him, swaying his countrymen
with all the force of his fiery oratory. His strong rugged face, eager,
yet impassive, was bent upon the scene of battle, as though not to lose
a detail, not to