and left, a line of wagons, but not closed up, for there were
wide intervals between; and now a low, dull, crunching sound and the
odour of bovine animals plainly announced that there were spans of oxen
lying close by the wagons as if ready for some movement in the early
morning for which their drivers had made preparations overnight.

As it happened, the interval between two of the wagons was fairly wide
just opposite the spot where Lennox was in line with his men. Dickenson
was off to his left, and Roby was leading.

In a whisper the major indicated that the men should close up and pass
through this opening, but in the excitement of the moment he spoke too
loudly, and from somewhere close, the guard having been passed in the
darkness, a man started up and shouted:

"Who comes there?"

His answer was given by the loud call of a bugle, and as he fired his
warning shot the major's voice was heard shouting, "Forward--bayonets!"
and with a ringing cheer the men dashed on as best they could, making
for the centre of the Boers' position, shouting, cheering again and
again, and driving the yelling crowd of excited Boers who were springing
up in all directions before them like a flock of sheep.

The confusion was awful: rifles were being fired here and there at
random, and more often at the expense of friend than of foe; while
wherever a knot of the enemy clustered together it was as often to come
into contact with their own people as with the major's excited line,
which dashed at them as soon as an opening could be found, with such
effect that the Boers, thoroughly surprised, gave way in every
direction, fleeing from bristling bayonets and overturning one another
in their alarm.

It was terrible work, for the attacking line was so often arrested by
impediments whose nature they could not stop to grasp, that it was soon
broken up into little groups led by officers commissioned and
non-commissioned. But still, after a fashion, they preserved the
formation of an advancing wave sweeping over the kopje, and their
discipline acted magnetically with its cohesion, drawing them together,
while their enemies scattered more and more to avoid the bayonet as much
as to find some shelter from which such of them as had their rifles
could fire.

It was panic _in excelsis_, and though many fought bravely, using their
pieces as clubs where they could not fire, the one line they followed
was that of flight for the enclosure behind, w