and if not, what state the survivors
were in. To this message Colonel Kincaid, R.E., now in command of the
remains of the assaulting party, replied that his men would be well
entrenched by daylight. The little party had been distributed for
digging as well as the darkness and their ignorance of their exact
position to the Boers would permit. Twice the sound of the picks brought
angry volleys from the darkness, but the work was never stopped, and
in the early dawn the workers found not only that they were secure
themselves, but that they were in a position to enfilade over half a
mile of Boer trenches. Before daybreak the British crouched low in their
shelter, so that with the morning light the Boers did not realise the
change which the night had wrought. It was only when a burgher was shot
as he filled his pannikin at the river that they understood how their
position was overlooked. For half an hour a brisk fire was maintained,
at the end of which time a white flag went up from the trench. Kincaid
stood up on his parapet, and a single haggard figure emerged from the
Boer warren. 'The burghers have had enough; what are they to do?' said
he. As he spoke his comrades scrambled out behind him and came walking
and running over to the British lines. It was not a moment likely to
be forgotten by the parched and grimy warriors who stood up and cheered
until the cry came crashing back to them again from the distant British
camps. No doubt Cronje had already realised that the extreme limit
of his resistance was come, but it was to that handful of Sappers and
Canadians that the credit is immediately due for that white flag which
fluttered on the morning of Majuba Day over the lines of Paardeberg.

It was six o'clock in the morning when General Pretyman rode up to Lord
Roberts's headquarters. Behind him upon a white horse was a dark-bearded
man, with the quick, restless eyes of a hunter, middle-sized, thickly
built, with grizzled hair flowing from under a tall brown felt hat. He
wore the black broadcloth of the burgher with a green summer overcoat,
and carried a small whip in his hands. His appearance was that of a
respectable London vestryman rather than of a most redoubtable soldier
with a particularly sinister career behind him.

The Generals shook hands, and it was briefly intimated to Cronje that
his surrender must be unconditional, to which, after a short silence,
he agreed. His only stipulations were personal, that his wife