men--a total of 420, Lord Ava, the honoured Son of an honoured
father, the fiery Dick-Cunyngham, stalwart Miller-Wallnutt, the brave
boy sappers Digby-Jones and Dennis, Adams and Packman of the Light
Horse, the chivalrous Lafone--we had to mourn quality as well as
numbers. The grim test of the casualty returns shows that it was to the
Imperial Light Horse (ten officers down, and the regiment commanded by
a junior captain), the Manchesters, the Gordons, the Devons, and the 2nd
Rifle Brigade that the honours of the day are due.

In the course of the day two attacks had been made upon other points
of the British position, the one on Observation Hill on the north, the
other on the Helpmakaar position on the east. Of these the latter was
never pushed home and was an obvious feint, but in the case of the other
it was not until Schutte, their commander, and forty or fifty men had
been killed and wounded, that the stormers abandoned their attempt. At
every point the assailants found the same scattered but impenetrable
fringe of riflemen, and the same energetic batteries waiting for them.

Throughout the Empire the course of this great struggle was watched with
the keenest solicitude and with all that painful emotion which springs
from impotent sympathy. By heliogram to Buller, and so to the farthest
ends of that great body whose nerves are the telegraphic wires, there
came the announcement of the attack. Then after an interval of hours
came 'everywhere repulsed, but fighting continues.' Then, 'Attack
continues. Enemy reinforced from the south.' Then 'Attack renewed. Very
hard pressed.' There the messages ended for the day, leaving the
Empire black with apprehension. The darkest forecasts and most dreary
anticipations were indulged by the most temperate and best-informed
London papers. For the first time the very suggestion that the campaign
might be above our strength was made to the public. And then at last
there came the official news of the repulse of the assault. Far away
at Ladysmith, the weary men and their sorely tried officers gathered to
return thanks to God for His manifold mercies, but in London also hearts
were stricken solemn by the greatness of the crisis, and lips long
unused to prayer joined in the devotions of the absent warriors.

CHAPTER 14. THE COLESBERG OPERATIONS.

Of the four British armies in the field I have attempted to tell the
story of the western one which advanced to help Kimberley, of the