ncing in short rushes of about fifty yards, the Boers
all the while lying under cover and shooting till the troops were within
some twenty or thirty yards of them. Then the Dutchmen, as suited their
convenience, either bolted or surrendered.

When the end ridge was gained and the guns captured, the enemy's laager
was close in sight. A white flag was shown from the centre of the camps.
At this Colonel Hamilton gave an order. The "Cease fire" was sounded.
There was a lull in the action, some of our men commencing to walk
slowly down-hill towards the camp. Suddenly, without warning, the
crackle of musketry was heard, and a deadly fire poured from a small
sugar-loaf shaped kopje to east of the camp. For one short moment our
men, staggered by the dastardly action and the fierce suddenness of the
attack, fell back, and during this moment a party of some forty Boers
had stoutly charged uphill and effected a lodgment near the crest.

[Illustration: PLAN OF BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAGTE]

But this ruse was a failure and their triumph short-lived. The 1st
Battalion Devonshire Regiment, who, as we know, had been holding the
enemy in front during the commencement of the infantry attack, and had
since then pushed steadily forward, had now reached to 350 yards from
the enemy. Here they lay down to recover breath before charging with
fixed bayonets. Five companies assaulted the hill to the left and five
to the right; and a detachment of these, arriving at the critical moment
when the Boers were making their last stand, helped to bring about the
triumphant finale.

Like the lightning that shot through the sky above, the Boers, at the
sound of the united cheers, had fled! Some scampered away to their
laager on the Nek, and from thence to other kopjes. Others filed in
troops anywhere, regardless of consequences. While they were in full
retreat, and the mists of darkness, like a gathering pall, hung over the
scene, the 5th Lancers and the 5th Dragoon Guards charged the flying
enemy--charged not once nor twice only, but thrice, dashing through the
scattered ranks with deadly purpose, though at terrible risk of life and
limb. Never were Boers so amazed. The despised worms--the miserable
Rooineks--had at last turned, and, as one of them afterwards described
it, they had "come on horses galloping, and with long sticks with spikes
at the end of them, picked us up like bundles of hay!"

The cost of victory, however, was heavy. Roughly estimated, w