rs. In a few weeks or months the very men whom we had spared
and treated with exceptional leniency were up in arms again,
justifying their breach of faith in many cases by the
extraordinary argument that we had not preserved them from the
temptation to commit it.

[Sidenote: _The Boer way of saying "Bosh"._]

Early in the long halt near Pretoria, at Silverton Camp, the Guards'
Brigade was formally assembled to hear read a telegram from H.R.H. The
Prince of Wales, congratulating them on the practical termination of
the war; whereupon as though by positive prearrangement the Boers
plumped a protesting shell in startlingly close proximity to where our
cheering ranks not long before had stood. It was the Boer way of
saying "bosh" to our ill-timed boast that the war was over.

Botha and his irreconcilables were at this time occupying a formidable
position, with a frontage of fifteen miles, near Pienaar's Poort,
where the Delagoa line runs through a gap in the hills, fifteen miles
east of Pretoria; and this position Lord Roberts found it essential to
attack with 17,000 men and seventy guns on Monday, June 11th, that is
just a week after the neighbouring capital had surrendered. The
fighting extended over three days; French attacking on our left,
Hamilton on our right, and Pole Carew in the centre keenly watching
the development of these flanking movements. In the course of this
stubborn contest the invisible Boers did for one brief while become
visible, as they galloped into the open in hope of capturing the Q
Battery, which had already won for itself renown by redeeming Sanna's
Post from complete disaster. Then it was Hamilton ordered the
memorable cavalry charge of the 12th Lancers, which saved the guns,
and scattered the Boers, but cost us the life of its gallant and
God-fearing Colonel Lord Airlie, who before the war greatly helped me
in my work at Aldershot. The death of such a man made the battle of
Diamond Hill a mournfully memorable one; for Lord Airlie combined in
his own martial character the hardness of the diamond with its
lustrous pureness; and his last words just before the fatal bullet
pierced his heart, were said to be a characteristic rebuke of an
excited and perhaps profane sergeant: "Pray, moderate your language!"
Wholesome advice, none too often given, and much too seldom heeded!

[Sidenote: _News from a far Country._]

As the inevitable result of this further fighting, the men who