Royal Horse Guards to accompany me, I snatched up
a few things of value and started off. "You will be shot, to a
certainty," said Mr. Weil. But it was no use waiting, as one could not
tell what would happen next. The bullets were fortunately flying high;
all the same, we had twice to stop under a wall and wait for a lull
before proceeding. Then I saw a native boy fall in front of me, and at
the same moment I stumbled and fell heavily, the servant thinking I was
hit; and all the while we could hear frightened cries continuing to
emanate from the flaming stadt.

The day had fully broken, and never had the roads appeared so white and
wide, the sheltering houses so few and far between. At length we reached
the hospital trench, and the last 500 yards of the journey were
accomplished in perfect safety. My dangerous experiences ended for the
rest of that dreadful day, which I spent in the haven of those walls,
sheltering so much suffering, and that were, alas! by evening crammed to
their fullest capacity. It was a gruesome sight seeing the wounded
brought in, and the blood-stained stretchers carried away empty, when
the occupants had been deposited in the operating-room. Sometimes an
ambulance waggon would arrive with four or five inmates; at others we
descried a stretcher-party moving cautiously across the
recreation-ground towards us with a melancholy load. It is easy to
imagine our feelings of dread and anxiety as we scanned the features of
the new arrivals, never knowing who might be the next. During the
morning three wounded Boers were brought in--the first prisoners
Mafeking could claim; then a native with his arm shattered to the
shoulder. All were skilfully and carefully attended to by the army
surgeon and his staff in a marvellously short space of time, and
comfortably installed in bed. But the Boers begged not to have sheets,
as they had never seen such things before. Among the English casualties,
one case was a very sad one. A young man, named Hazelrigg, of an old
Leicestershire family, was badly shot in the region of the heart when
taking a message to the B.S.A.P. fort, not knowing the Boers were in
possession. Smart and good-looking, he had only just been promoted to
the post of orderly from being a private in the Cape Police, into which
corps he had previously enlisted, having failed in his army examination.
When brought to the hospital, Hazelrigg had nearly bled to death, and
was dreadfully weak, his case being