arms? Where's the Army Corps?
Has a man of that Army Corps left England? Shilly-shally, as usual.
South Africa's no place for an Englishman to live in. Armoured train
blown up, Mafeking cut off, Kimberley in danger, and General
Butler--what? Oh yes--General Buller leaves England to-day. Why didna
they send the Army Corps out three months ago?

_Brown-faced man._ It's six thousand miles--

_Thick-set man._ Why didna they send them just after the Bloemfontein
conference, before the Boers were ready? British Gov--

_Brown-faced man._ They've had three rifles a man with ammunition since
1896.

_I_ (_timidly_). Well, then, if the Army Corps had left three months
ago, wouldn't the Boers have declared war three months ago too?

_All except brown-faced man_ (_loudly_). No!

_Brown-faced man_ (_quietly_). Yes. Gentlemen, bedtime! As Brand used to
say, "Al zal rijt komen!"

_All_ (_fervently_). Al zal rijt komen! Success to the British arms!
Good night!

(All go to bed. In the night somebody on the Boer side--or
elsewhere--goes out shooting, or looses off his rifle on general
grounds; two loyalists and a refugee spring up and grasp their
revolvers. In the morning everybody wakes up unsjamboked. The
hotel-keeper takes me out to numerous points whence Pieter's farm can be
reconnoitred: there is not a single tent to be seen, and no sign of a
single Boer.)

It is a shame to smile at them. They are really very, very loyal, and
they are excellent fellows and most desirable colonists. Aliwal is a
nest of green on the yellow veldt, speckless, well-furnished, with
Marechal Niel roses growing over trellises, and a scheme to dam the
Orange river for water-supply, and electric light. They were quite
unprotected, and their position was certainly humiliating.

VI.

THE BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAGTE.

FRENCH'S RECONNAISSANCE--AN ARTILLERY DUEL--BEGINNING OF THE
ATTACK--RIDGE AFTER RIDGE--A CROWDED HALF-HOUR.

LADYSMITH, _Oct. 22._

From a billow of the rolling veldt we looked back, and black columns
were coming up behind us.

Along the road from Ladysmith moved cavalry and guns. Along the railway
line to right of it crept trains--one, two, three of them--packed with
khaki, bristling with the rifles of infantry. We knew then that we
should fight before nightfall.

Major-General French, who commanded, had been out from before daybreak
with the Imperial Light Horse and the battery of the Natal Volunteer
Artillery