re.

"'Av a 'oss, guv'nor, 'av a 'oss?" said a dirty-faced, sweaty, but
generous Tommy to me, as he led a black Boer steed by the bridle. Not
liking to take his capture from him, I went off to where he told me
several were standing, and picked out a likely-looking grey. Darkness
was now rapidly falling. A Tommy came up and led off another horse.

"I'm taking this for the Colonel; me and the old man don't get on
well. The old buffer is always down on me whenever I takes a drop, but
I'm going to make him a present of a 'oss this night, that I am." He
went off in the darkness, towing the present by the bridle.

At this moment very few officers were at this point of the hill; the
Gordons, for instance, had lost thirteen. I came then upon General
French, who had come along the ridge in the fighting line with the
Manchesters and Gordons, and was glad to have so early a chance of
offering him my heartiest congratulations on the day. The last time I
had met him was when the artillery on both sides were hard at it; he
appeared then more like a man playing a game of chess than a game of
war, and was not too busy to sympathise with me on the badness of the
light when he saw me trying to take snapshots of the Boer shells
bursting amongst the Imperial Light Horse near us.

General French is deservedly very popular with officers, men,
correspondents, and all who meet him, and we were all glad at the
brilliant ending of this hard-fought day.

The 5th Lancers and 5th Dragoon Guards were now pursuing the
retreating Boers. The Dragoons carried lances, which may account for
the credit which was equally due to them with the Lancers being unduly
given to the latter. Another hour or half-hour of light and they would
have played the very mischief with the retreating Boers. The Dragoons
chased them past a Red Cross tent, where a man was waving a Red Cross
flag. They respected those gathered about the tent; but one ruffian,
waiting until they came abreast, shot point-blank at a private. As he
fell dead from the saddle Captain Derbyshire rode at his slayer and
shot him dead with his revolver. A big Dragoon would put his foot to
the back of a Boer and tug to get his lance out. Some of the Boers
stood firing till the cavalry came within twenty yards. The ground was
broken veldt with patches of outcropping stones, which, added to the
fading light, made it terrible ground for charging over. Already Tommy
on top of the hill and down its sides wa