d set. But I felt sure that they
would at all costs make their way through the cordon.[104]

Commandant Jan Meijer had met me at Brakfontein, but one party of his
burghers was still six miles to the south. When I decided to break
through, I sent him orders to follow me; and this he was quite capable
of doing, as he was well acquainted with this part of the country. My
orders were that the mounted men were to proceed in advance, taking with
them my little waggon drawn by eight mules.

This waggon had accompanied me into Cape Colony, and since that
time--for fourteen weary months--had never left me. I had even taken it
with me when, a fortnight previously, I had broken through the
blockhouse lines.

Behind the horsemen came the aged and the sick, who occupied the
remaining vehicles, and lastly the cattle, divided into several herds.

In this order we rode on.

When we were approaching the spot at which I expected to find the enemy,
I ordered Commandant Ross and one hundred men, with Hermanus Botha and
Alberts, and portions of their commandos, to go on ahead of us.

After passing through Holspruit we inclined to the west, as the road to
the east would, according to my scouts, have led us right into the
English camp. But it was not with one camp only that we had to deal: the
English were everywhere: a whole army lay before us--an army so immense
that many Englishmen thought that it would be a task beyond the stupid
and illiterate Boer to count it, much less to understand its
significance. I will pander to the English conception of us and say, "We
have seen them: they are a great big lot!"

We had hardly moved three hundred paces from where we had crossed
Holspruit, when the English, lined up about three hundred yards in front
of us, and opened fire. We saw that they did not intend our flight to be
an easy one.

Before we had reached the "spruit,"[105] and while crossing it, the
burghers had kept pushing ahead and crowds had even passed us, but the
enemy's fire checked them and they wheeled round.

Only the men under Commandants Ross, Botha, and Alberts did not waver.
These officers and their veldtcornets with less than one hundred men
stormed the nearest position of the enemy, who were occupying a fort on
the brow of a steep bank.

I shouted to my command: "Charge."

I exerted all my powers of persuasion to arrest the flight of my
burghers; even bringing the sjambok into the argument.

Two hundred and fifty w