table spot was reached.
No sooner had I thrown my wire over the line than I again heard British
and Dutch signals intermingled. Good! My message was safe.

The Kafir shinned up the pole and cut the wire, permitting the British
signals only to come through. I listened intently to the various more or
less interesting messages being exchanged by the enemy. Presently a new
and stronger note broke in--

"Hello! Here, Sergeant-Major Devons. Who are you?"

Devons? Those are the fellows that we fought at Ladysmith. But what--how
comes he here? Listen----

"Here, Heilbron. We're just waiting to leave. Crowds of Boers on the
hills."

"Ah! I say, I've pushed on, quite by myself, for fully twelve miles,"
said the hoarse note of the non-com.'s vibrator. "When I reached
Roberts' Horse the chief said I was d----d lucky to get through!"

"Good on you!" replied his admiring hearer. "This is a bit different
from old Tyneside, ain't it?"

"Cheer up; we shall soon be in Pretoria."

"Confound you!" said I, dashing my fist on the key, "you're not there
yet!"

To prevent myself from interrupting them, advertently or otherwise, I
had taken the precaution to disconnect the battery, so my little
outbreak did no harm.

Then the sergeant-major sent a long message to his chief, Captain
Faustnett, duly informing the latter of the distance he had come, all by
himself, and of what the officer commanding Roberts' Horse had said,
after which the Heilbron man remarked--

"Good-bye, we're off." Silence followed.

The net result of the morning's work was the knowledge that Hamilton was
leaving Heilbron at that very moment, and leaving it ungarrisoned. This
information I hastened to communicate to my chief, with the result that
within a very short space of time we were again in telegraphic
communication with that town and in possession of several hundred sick
and wounded that the British had kindly left to our care. At Spion Kop
we wanted their wounded, but did not get them; here we did not want them
in the least, but we got them all the same.

My next task was the maintenance of the fence line between Frankfort and
Reitz. A testing station had been established half-way between the two
villages, consequently the communication was fairly good and there was
not much for me to do. One day a message arrived from my chief in
Pretoria, asking me to go thither, and accompany him northwards when the
capital should be abandoned. The Postmaster-Gener