bursting in rapid succession at Spytfontein. Strong though the position
admittedly was, its defenders could never resist a cannonade so awful.
It was the famous, disastrous battle of Magersfontein that was in
progress. But of that we then knew nothing. We knew not that hundreds of
the Highland Brigade lay dead, nor that while Kimberley was brimming
over with enthusiasm at the prospect of immediate freedom, dismay was
rampant everywhere else. There we were, twenty miles from the scene of
slaughter, looking on, not only ignorant of the truth, but entirely
mistaken in our assumption that it was what we wished it to be.

The sight of what appeared to be a balloon (and we soon discovered that
it was nothing else) excited tremendous interest. It ascended and
descended repeatedly during the battle, apparently for the purpose of
locating the enemy and directing the fire of Methuen's guns. We had been
inundated with narratives of the extraordinary strength of the positions
into which Boer ingenuity had converted the kopjes of Magersfontein. No
further attention was paid to these tales, for lyddite was a terrible
thing--that could move kopjes. It was but a matter of hours until the
Column would be with us, unless, indeed, it paused for rest. The next
day, we felt, would end the Siege of Kimberley, and bring again into
vogue good dinners, buttered bread, and--something to drink.

When firing ceased at length, the Beaconsfield Town Guard determined to
make a noise on their own account. The easiest way to do it was to sound
the alarm; and they did sound it, with right good will. They had
observed a large party of the enemy clearing out of Alexandersfontein,
and were possessed of an hallucination that it portended an attack on
Beaconsfield. These wolf-cries, however, were venial faults; they
denoted watchfulness; we were not disposed to take umbrage at small
things; it was a day of victory. No suspicion of the truth flashed