ullet will strike. At the same time,
ever so faint a spark away in the blackness catches his glance and the
glance of many another. It might be the friction of metal--momentary
and accidental--upon a stone lying on the slope, or it might be a
signal.

Soon a stealthy sound reaches each listening ear--the sound of footsteps
drawing near in the darkness.

Nearer--nearer--and then--The whole ridge bursts into a line of flame
and a deafening crackle as of a mighty hailstorm upon myriad iron roofs.
Yet, great in volume as it is, not so great as to drown the wild,
ringing British cheer as the khaki-clad figures, dimly visible in the
unceasing flash of musketry, come surging up the slope, leaping,
stumbling, falling, dropping down suddenly, only to spring up again and
press on, the dreaded bayonet fixed, for the world-renowned charge
before which nothing can stand. But the grim dwellers in these wild
wastes are not to be turned so easily. A kopje hard by, silent
hitherto, is now ringed with flame, and, caught in this terrible
crossfire, the intrepid assailants are literally mown down, and for a
few moments the slaughter is terrific.

Adrian De la Rey, lying in his shelter, is pouring in his shots--cool,
well-directed and telling. The expression of hate and blood-lust upon
his set features is well-nigh devilish; yet his mind preserves a
murderous coolness, as he watches every chance, and never fails to take
it. But he is in the very forefront of the fray, and in the wild
confusion a knot of desperate British, not hearing, or disregarding, the
"retire," have charged with irresistible dash headlong on to his
position. Their wild slogan is in his ears, and in the ears of those
beside him. The points of the deadly bayonets gleam in the sheeting
flashes, and then--and then--with the hard sickening pang which wrenches
his very life away--he discharges his Mauser full in the face of the
tall soldier, who topples heavily back with a hole through his brain--
and Briton and Boer lie feet to feet--facing each other as they fell.

Morning light--a truce--white flags here and there--the Red Cross symbol
everywhere. The hillsides strewn with dead and dying and wounded, and
up yonder, in their strongly entrenched laager in the background,
Commandant Schoeman and the grim Republican leaders are viewing their
many prisoners, impassive, laconic, and manifesting neither surprise nor
elation over the efficiency of the trap so carefull