even now caught a glint from the strengthening sun-rays. Here
was a stretch of yellow furrow--the finger of civilisation on a virgin
waste. Here spots of shimmering white, where the surface of a dam
reflected the flooding light of day. Here and there a flock of sheep
relieved the monotony of the everlasting grey. While across our front
a bunch of brood-mares were galloping in the ecstasy of day and
freedom, and a bevy of quaintly pirouetting ostriches gave life to the
wonderful picture. And presently a little fan of brown dots opened out
on the grey below--opened out and diverged in pairs. Dots so small and
insignificant that they looked like ants upon a carriage-drive. Out
and out they spread, till they seemed lost and merged with the
brood-mares and ostriches, now ceasing their wild movements and
grouping in mild amazement at the strange invasion. And still the dots
diverge. It is the advance-guard of our column--heralds of selfish man
bringing horrid war into this peaceful vale. As the dots mingle with
the ant-heaps on the plain, or are lost in the folds of the grey
prairie, a pillar of dust rises from the centre of the fan. A larger
mass of brown--the battery and its escort--a great kharki caterpillar
creeping across the grey,--it is time to be moving, the last
mule-waggon has topped the nek, and the last of the rear-guard are
leading their horses up the post-cart road.

"Not bad for a green crush!" said the brigadier as he prepared to
follow down the hillside. "Hullo! what is that?"

A spark had shown out of the misty distance. A little glitter. It
came, trembled a second, and disappeared. Again it came, a
many-pointed star, winking and shivering.

"Some one is calling up. Here, signaller!--where is the brigade
signaller?"

A great dragoon tumbles out of his saddle and begins to arrange his
tripod. In a few seconds his mirror has caught the sun in answer to
the twinkling star in front.

"Who is it?"

A silence broken only by rhythmic clicks, as the signaller catches the
distant conversation, and his monotonous reading of the code. A stolid
assistant takes it down. "'T' group, 'W' group, 'I' group, 'Enna,' 'E'
group--Major Twine, sir."

"Oh, the advance squadron. Well, that's satisfactory; we shall not
have to bury them after all. What have they got to say?" and the
brigadier sat down on his rock again as the signaller spelt out the
message.

"Am moving now on Nieuwjaarsfontein. Parties of mounted Boers