TIONS.

There was a splendid supply of corn in the great woven Kaffir baskets,
and that and the captured flock of sheep did wonders; but there were
many hungry mouths to feed, and the lookout was growing worse than ever.
The Boers were fighting furiously all over the two states and keeping
our men at bay, or else were flitting from place to place to be hunted
down again, and keeping the British generals so busily at work that,
though they tried hard, it was impossible to send help to the little
detachment at Groenfontein, from which place they had received no news,
neither were they able to get through a single despatch.

Many a long discussion took place amongst the soldiers about the state
of affairs, in which Corporal May declared that it was a burning shame--
that the generals only thought of saving their own skins, and didn't
care a fig for the poor fellows on duty fighting for their lives.

Sergeant James was present, and he flushed up into a rage and bullied
the corporal in the way that a sergeant can bully when he is put out.
He told the corporal that he was a disgrace to the army; and he told the
men that as long as a British officer could move to the help of his men
who were in peril, he didn't care a snap of the fingers for his own
life, but he moved.

Then it was the men's turn, and they spoke all together and as loudly as
they could; but they only said one word, and that one word was "Hooray!"
repeated a great many times over, with the result that Corporal May was
fully of opinion that the men put more faith in the sergeant than they
did in him, and, to use one of the men's expressions, "he sneaked off
like a wet terrier with his tail between his legs."

Discussions took place also among the officers again and again after
their miserable starvation mess, which was once more, in spite of all
efforts to supplement it, reduced to a very low ebb. For the brave
colonel was Spartan-like in his ways.

"I can't sit down to a better dinner than my brave lads are eating,
gentlemen," he would say. "It's share and share alike with the Boers'
hard knocks, so it's only fair that it should be the same with the good
things of life."

"Yes, that's all very well, colonel," grumbled the major; "but where are
those good things?"

"Ah, where are they?" said the colonel. "Never mind; we shall win yet.
The Boers have done their worst to crack this hard nut, and we've kept
them at bay, which is almost as good as a vict