ped short in the middle of an
important despatch, while private and press messages innumerable await
their turn. The thread of that interrupted telegram will probably not be
taken up for many days, and we realise that our isolation is complete.
Communications might have been kept open for days longer by an energetic
use of artillery and mounted troops, but now it is too late to reopen
them without incurring risk of serious losses. We must be content to
wait the development of events in other quarters, for the Boers are all
round us now, and, blink the fact as we may, it must be admitted that
Ladysmith is under siege.

While General French was making his reconnaissance our naval 12-pounders
opened fire on "Long Tom" a few minutes after six o'clock, as a flash
and puff of white smoke from his muzzle told that the bombardment was
about to begin. For an hour and a half the artillery duel went on
briskly, Captain Lambton's naval battery answering shot for shot, or
rather anticipating each, as the shells from our guns travel with
greater velocity, and get home three seconds before "Long Tom's" can
take effect.

Unfortunately one of the enemy's shells fell close to Lieutenant
Egerton, instructor in gunnery of H.M.S. _Powerful_, who was mortally
wounded. "My cricketing days are over now," he said, with a plucky
attempt to make light of his agony as the bluejackets lifted him gently
on to a stretcher. The Naval Brigade also had one bluejacket wounded,
but not seriously. There was only one other casualty, though shells fell
frequently into the camps of Gordon Highlanders and Imperial Light Horse
in rear of our main battery, the former having one man hit by a splinter
as he lay in his tent. The two regiments were thereupon ordered to shift
their quarters, which they did with great promptitude, having no
particular fancy to play the part of targets for ninety-four-pound
shells.

_November 3._--Misfortunes press upon each other quickly. This morning
Lieut. Egerton, R.N., a young sailor, not less distinguished for skill
in his profession than for personal gallantry, died. His requiem rang
out from the naval battery in its duel with the enemy's heaviest
artillery. Soon other Boer guns joined in from Lombard's Kop and the
slopes of Bulwaan, throwing shells about the town as if resolved to
compass its ruin.

To-day, indeed, for the first time, we have had brought home to us the
dangers and discomforts, if not the horrors, of what a