sent by Hertzog, under a commandant called Lotter, to
pick up the Richmond rebels and take them down to Graaf Reinet, where
De Wet's invaders had orders to concentrate, before undertaking the
more desperate venture of the invasion. He indorsed the other wounded
man's version of the attack they had made upon us in the morning, and
he also volunteered the information that Brand, Hertzog, and
Pretorius were due to attack Britstown--our destination--this very
evening. This information so far interested the brigadier that he
ordered an officer's patrol from the 20th Dragoon Guards to leave camp
at 3 A.M. and ride right through to Britstown without a halt, so as to
arrive there by nine or ten in the morning. It was important to know
if Britstown had been attacked, since until the concentration took
place on the morrow the garrison there was weak: it was also important
that the general officer commanding the combined movement should know
of the deflection from Hertzog's commando which we had encountered.
Lieutenant Meadows, having proved so successful in avoiding the enemy
in the morning, was again entrusted with the mission, and he was given
Stephanus as his guide.

* * * * *

The gathering clouds did not prove simply a seasonable warning. A
great icy blast swept up the valley, driving a broad belt of stinging
dust before it, and the bivouac was smitten through and through by a
South African dust-storm. Five minutes of fierce gale, with lightning
that momentarily dispelled the night, then a pause--the herald of
coming rain. A few great ice-cold drops smote like hail on the
tarpaulin shelter that served headquarters for a mess-tent. Then
followed five minutes of a deluge such as you in England cannot
conceive. A deluge against which the stoutest oil-skin is as
blotting-paper. A rain which seems also to entice fountains from the
earth beneath you. In ten minutes all is over. The stars are again
demurely winking above you, and all that you know of the storm is that
you see the vast diminishing cloud, revealed in the west by the fading
lightning-flashes, and that you have not a dry possession either in
your kit or on your person.

"Not much fear of sleeping sentries to-night," said the chief of the
staff as we cowered round a fire under the waggon-sail.

"No; and it is just as well: it is on these sleepless nights that
'brother'[16] is fond of showing himself," answered the brigadier. "I
don't