ured train and a squadron of the Protectorate
Regiment went out to support the pickets and drove the Boers before
them. A body of the latter doubled back and interposed between the
British and Mafeking, but two fresh troops with a 7-pounder throwing
shrapnel drove them off. In this spirited little action the garrison
lost two killed and fourteen wounded, but they inflicted considerable
damage on the enemy. To Captain Williams, Captain FitzClarence, and Lord
Charles Bentinck great credit is due for the way in which they handled
their men; but the whole affair was ill advised, for if a disaster had
occurred Mafeking must have fallen, being left without a garrison. No
possible results which could come from such a sortie could justify the
risk which was run.

On October 16th the siege began in earnest. On that date the Boers
brought up two 12-pounder guns, and the first of that interminable
flight of shells fell into the town. The enemy got possession of the
water supply, but the garrison had already dug wells. Before October
20th five thousand Boers, under the formidable Cronje, had gathered
round the town. 'Surrender to avoid bloodshed' was his message. 'When
is the bloodshed going to begin?' asked Powell. When the Boers had been
shelling the town for some weeks the lighthearted Colonel sent out to
say that if they went on any longer he should be compelled to regard
it as equivalent to a declaration of war. It is to be hoped that Cronje
also possessed some sense of humour, or else he must have been as sorely
puzzled by his eccentric opponent as the Spanish generals were by the
vagaries of Lord Peterborough.

Among the many difficulties which had to be met by the defenders of the
town the most serious was the fact that the position had a circumference
of five or six miles to be held by about one thousand men against a
force who at their own time and their own place could at any moment
attempt to gain a footing. An ingenious system of small forts was
devised to meet the situation. Each of these held from ten to forty
riflemen, and was furnished with bomb-proofs and covered ways. The
central bomb-proof was connected by telephone with all the outlying
ones, so as to save the use of orderlies. A system of bells was arranged
by which each quarter of the town was warned when a shell was coming in
time to enable the inhabitants to scuttle off to shelter. Every detail
showed the ingenuity of the controlling mind. The armoured tra