t. Of her officers, the flower of her chivalry, the
pride of her breeding, but few remained to tell the tale--a sad tale truly,
but one untainted with dishonour or smirched with disgrace, for up those
heights under similar circumstances even a brigade of devils could scarce
have hoped to pass. All that mortal men could do the Scots did; they tried,
they failed, they fell. And there is nothing left us now but to mourn for
them, and avenge them; and I am no prophet if the day is distant when the
Highland bayonet will write the name of Wauchope large and deep in the best
blood of the Boers.

All that fateful day our wounded men lay close to the Boer lines under a
blazing sun; over their heads the shots of friends and foes passed without
ceasing. Many a gallant deed was done by comrades helping comrades; men who
were shot through the body lay without water, enduring all the agony of
thirst engendered by their wounds and the blistering heat of the day; to
them crawled Scots with shattered limbs, sharing the last drop of water in
their bottles, and taking messages to be delivered to mourning women in the
cottage home of far-off Scotland. Many a last farewell was whispered by
pain-drawn lips in between the ringing of the rifles, many a rough soldier
with tenderest care closed the eyes of a brother in arms amidst the tempest
and the stir of battle; and above it all, Cronje, the Boer general, must
have smiled grimly, for well he knew that where the Highland Brigade had
failed all the world might falter. All day long the battle raged; scarcely
could we see the foe--all that met our eyes was the rocky heights that
spoke with tongues of flame whenever our troops drew near. We could not
reach their lines; it was murder, grim and ghastly, to send the infantry
forward to fight a foe they could not see and could not reach. Once our
Guards made a brilliant dash at the trenches, and, like a torrent, their
resistless valour bore all before them, and for a few brief moments they
got within hitting distance of the foe. Well did they avenge the slaughter
of the Scots; the bayonets, like tongues of flame, passed above or below
the rifles' guard, and swept through brisket and breastbone. Out of their
trenches the Guardsmen tossed the Boers, as men in English harvest fields
toss the hay when the reapers' scythes have whitened the cornfields; and
the human sheaves were plentiful where the British Guardsmen stood. Then
they fell back, for the fire