lance go
out." And that was the way in which Baden-Powell took the defeat of
his great plan for breaking the tightening cordon round Mafeking.

In history are recorded sieges of a more thrilling character than that
of Mafeking, but if you consider the story of this little town's
defence you will find, I believe, that in few other cases have
difficulties of so oppressive a character been borne with greater
fortitude and courage. In a large town a siege is not so wearing to
the nerves as it is in a little village the size of Mafeking; and in
the case of this miniature garrison the troublesomeness has been
doubled by the small number of men to share the burden of days and
nights spent in the trenches, now blistered by the sun's rays, now
drenched to the skin with rain that converted the ditches into small
rivers. It is not our purpose to magnify Baden-Powell's defence, but
it is necessary to caution you against the natural course of following
his example and treating the Boer bombardment as a joke. It was no
joke; and, if it had been, even the best of jokes pall when repeated
through days and weeks and weary months. But the garrison would never
let anybody dream that they were doing heroic things, never send
imploring messages for help to men already occupied with the enemy in
other parts of South Africa. To the question, "How long can you hold
out?" Baden-Powell had only one answer, "As long as the food lasts."

And so we take leave of our friend the Old Carthusian defending his
warm corner. As the last page is turned we see him walking through the
streets of Mafeking, now glancing with hard steely eye to the forts
which throw their coward shells into the women's laager, now turning
to give an order with clenched hands and locked jaws, and now stooping
down to lift a child into his arms and caress away its little fears.
On his mind weighs the safety of that town with its handful of brave
lives, the prestige of England, which suffers if the flag once set
above the roofs of any town, whatever the size, falls before the
assault of the Queen's enemies, and the thought that far away in
distant London the mother who made him what he is, waits on the rack
for his delivery. Be sure that never a thought of adding to his own
reputation enters the mind of Baden-Powell in little Mafeking, that
never does bitterness for tardy release enter his soul, and that all
his labour has but one great all-embracing end--the victory of his
side