n unfolded itself one
marvelled that anyone should have lived throughout the siege. And when
the procession formed up in the dilapidated Market Square, and the whole
of the Town Guard mustered--Kaffirs, Parsees, Jews, Arabians,
Englishmen, Dutchmen, nearly every sort and nationality of men--and when
the Mayor read an address expressing in the conventional terms of such
compliments the emotions of this motley crowd, one asked oneself what it
was that had held these very ordinary-looking people to so heroic an
intention. Remember that the defence of Mafeking had been one big bluff,
that there was nothing to prevent the Boers, with determination and
careful arrangement, from taking the place at almost any time, and you
will realise how startlingly that question asserted itself. I like to
think that there were many men in Mafeking whose courage alone would
have disdained surrender; but there was one man in whose face one found
the answer to the riddle. Brains alone would not have done it; heart
alone would have fainted and failed under those long months of danger;
but the officer commanding this garrison had both brains and heart, and
so he taught his men to endure.

I do not pay the garrison of Mafeking so poor a compliment as to suppose
that the mere hunger for luxuries, serious misfortune though it be, was
the signal trial of its endurance. Ladysmith suffered worse in this
respect and did not complain. In Mafeking there was always a plentiful
supply of green vegetables, of tobacco, and of wine, and it was only
with a smile that the heir to one of the wealthiest estates in England
told me that they had latterly invented a brawn made with glue from the
hides and feet and ears of mules and donkeys.

But nearly 30,000 shells fell into a town covering about the same area
as Cowes; in many streets not a man dared show himself save under the
cloud of a dark night, for they were swept by rifle bullets; hardly one
of the many forts on the circumference of defence held weapons half so
formidable as the stout hearts that served them. Thirty thousand shells!
I have been in the neighbourhood of perhaps a hundred bursting shells,
and every burst will be a memory for a lifetime; but thirty thousand!
The heart stops at the thought. Yet here was the little ruined town;
here were the men with weak bodies and cheery faces to prove that
courage can raise the mind beyond fear and suffering; that, given an
ideal and a chance in the leadershi