orrow."

The "Colonel" answered: "I shall be pleased to see you," and asked
them if they had any money or valuables they wished taken care of. But
the Boers, true to the saying, "Touch a Boer's heart rather than his
purse," answered in chorus: "Thank you, but we have put all that
carefully away where no Boer will find it."

They all bid the "Colonel" good-bye, the "Tommies" exchanging some
familiarities with the women till these screamed with laughter, and
then the "Colonel" and his commando of two men remounted their big
clumsy English horses and rode proudly away. But pride comes before a
fall, and they had not proceeded many yards when the "Colonel's"
horse, stumbling over a bundle of barbed wire, fell, and threw his
rider to the ground. Just as he had nearly exhausted the Dutch
vocabulary of imprecations, the Steenkamps, who fortunately had not
heard him, came to his assistance and with many expressions of
sympathy helped him on his horse, Roux carefully wiping his leggings
clean with his handkerchief. After proceeding a little further the
"Tommies" asked their "Colonel" what he meant by that acrobatic
performance. Whereat the "Colonel" answered: "That was a very
fortunate accident; the Steenkamps are now convinced that we are
English by the clumsy manner I rode."

The next morning my three adjutants arrived in camp carrying four new
Mausers and 100 cartridges each, and driving about 300 sheep and a
nice pony. The same morning I sent Field-Cornet Young to arrest the
brave quartette of burghers. He found everything packed in readiness
to depart to the English camp, and they were anxiously awaiting
Colonel Bullock's promised waggons.

It was, of course, a fine "tableau" when the curtain rose on the
farce, disclosing in the place of the expected English rescuers a
burgher officer with a broad smile on his face. They were, of course,
profuse in their apologies and excuses. They declared that they had
been surrounded by hundreds of the enemy who had placed their rifles
to their breasts, forcing them to surrender. One of them was now in so
pitiable a condition of fear that he showed the field-cornet a score
of certificates from doctors and quacks of all sorts, declaring him to
be suffering from every imaginable disease, and the field-cornet was
moved to leave him behind. The other three were placed under arrest,
court-martialled and sentenced to three months' hard labour, and to
have all their goods confiscated.

T