ed roar, while the sides of the pass
took up the reports, forming a deafening roll of thunder running down
towards the plain.

Before this was half-over there was the rush of men before us, the
stones and the spaces between seeming to be alive with running and
leaping Boers, shouting and cheering like mad as they came on, their
purpose being to scare us and frighten the horses into a stampede,
which, if it had followed, must have been equally fatal to their
comrades attacking from the rear as it would have been to us; but,
instead of the enemy being gratified by hearing the clattering of
hundreds of hoofs, they were received by a series of sharp volleys
proceeding from our two lines of men. These were so inadequately
returned that the officers in the rear ran to and fro bidding us stand
firm and keep up the fire, no attempt being made to fall back towards
the gap where the horses were tethered.

Those were tremendously exciting minutes, and in the confusion, the
crack of the rifles, and the reverberations, I hardly know what I did,
except that I kept on firing without taking aim, for the simple reason
that there was nothing visible in the smoke and darkness unless one had
tried to aim at a spot from whence flashes came; and as the men
attacking us were constantly on the move, that would have been useless.

I found afterwards, on talking to the men above me, that they had
behaved in precisely the same way as I did--they kept on firing; while
all were in constant expectation of having to club their rifles to beat
back the enemy should they come on with a rush.

However, we never came to close quarters that night; for, failing in
sweeping our men back in the first surprise, the enemy drew off a short
distance till all were well under cover, and then kept up their fire,
each party of the enemy seeming utterly regardless of the risk to their
own comrades beyond us.

In the midst of the roar and reverberation I was startled by a hand laid
upon my shoulder, and, turning sharply, I found the sergeant by my side.

"Fall back," he said; and as I obeyed I thrust my hand to my
cartridge-belt so as to reload, when, to my utter astonishment, I found
it was two-thirds empty. This was soon remedied; for, as we--that is to
say, about half the defenders of the upper side of our stronghold--stood
fast, non-commissioned officers came running along and thrust packets of
cartridges into our hands.

It was, as I have said, very dark