I
knew he was as anxious as anyone to be in first.

Well, we joined the Advance Guard, which presently went on along the
road pointed out by the guide, and for an hour we jogged on at a fast
walk, until we had clearly "run the distance," as they say at sea. Still
no sign of the trenches or forts which should mark the outward boundary
of the defended area. We pulled up, and the guide was questioned.

"Two miles more," he said.

We rode on for another quarter of an hour, and still found nothing
before us but the rolling veldt; not a light, not a sound except the
beating of the horses' feet. Again we halted, and this time Colonel
Peakman himself questioned the guide, and the man had to admit that he
had mistaken his way, and that we were on the lower road, longer by a
good three miles than that originally intended. We had no connecting
files with the main column, and, as it had a guide of its own, it was
certain that it would take the shorter road, and probably be in before
its own Advance Guard. A bitter moment, in which things were said to the
guide; but some of us hoped that the slow convoy, with its tired and
galled mules, would even yet take a longer time on its short road than
we on our long one. So we went on again, this time at a trot; the
excitement seemed to extend to the horses, so that even they could not
be restrained. In ten minutes we saw men sitting by the roadside, and
found a hundred very weary Fusiliers, who had been sent to take Israel's
Farm at the end of the fight, and told to go on afterwards.

"Had anyone passed along the road before us?" "No"; and with a gasp of
relief we hurried on. In a few moment's the group in advance pulled up,
shouting "'Ware barbed wire!"

We all stopped, and there were frantic calls for wire-cutters. With four
reports like the snapping of big fiddle-strings the last barrier before
Mafeking was removed, and we passed on again, this time at a
hand-canter. In a few minutes we heard the sound of a galloping horse
on the road, and a mounted man challenged us.

"Halt! Who goes there?"

"Friend."

"Who are you?" (The excitement was too high for the preservation of the
proper formula.)

"Colonel Peakman, in command of the Advance Guard of the Relief Column."

"By Jove, ain't I glad to see you, sir!"

It was an officer sent out by Colonel Baden-Powell to meet us and bring
us in. We left the squadron, and the five of us went on, this time at a
gallop, over trenches, pa