white and trembled in spite of the stranger's kindly
tone.

"Oh, don't be afraid of me, you are hurt enough already. Shall I get
you some water?" was the instant Boer rejoinder to the Australian's
signs of suspicion. The water was soon produced; and next there came
forth from the pocket of that young Boer a couple of peaches, which
were offered to the sufferer, and thankfully accepted.

"You must be faint with this fierce sun beating on you," said this
strange foeman; and thereupon he sat upon a rock for over an hour in
such a position that his shadow sheltered the wounded man, and surely,
as in Peter's story, that shadow must have had grace and healing in
it. Ultimately an ambulance arrived, and this chivalrous Transvaaler
crowned the helpfulness of that eventful hour by tenderly lifting the
crippled Australian on to a stretcher, with an expression of hope that
he would soon be well again.

At the close of this unnatural conflict it is our best consolation to
be divinely assured that the brotherliness which thus presented
peaches to a wounded foe will ultimately triumph over the bitterness
which winged the explosive bullet that well-nigh killed him.

[Sidenote: _Look on this picture--and on that._]

While it is undeniable that cases of chivalrous courtesy such as this
occurred repeatedly in the course of the campaign, it is equally
undeniable that the Boers sometimes deliberately set aside all the
usages of civilized war. Mr Crewdson, for instance, says that after
the Slingersfontein fight he met at least a dozen men who declared
that the Boers drove up the hill in front of them hundreds of armed
Kaffirs, and then themselves crept up on hands and knees under cover
of this living moving wall. Such strategy is exceedingly slim; but
they who make use of semi-savages must themselves for the time being
be accounted near akin to them. One word from the Queen would have
sufficed to let loose on the Boers the slaughterous fury of almost all
native South Africa, but had that word been spoken there could have
been found no forgiveness for it in this life or in the life to come.
Yet Slingersfontein was not the only sad instance of this sort, for
Sir Redvers Buller in his official report concerning Vaalkrantz
solemnly declares that then also there were armed Kaffirs with the
Boer forces, and that there also the Red flag was abominably abused,
for he himself and his Staff saw portions of artillery conveyed by the
Boers to a