warm me. We were awakened out of a cold storage sort of
sleep by pom-poms going off right over our They sounded just as
disturbing I found from the rear as when you are in front of them.
They are the most effective of all the small guns for causing your
nerves to riot. We climbed up the hill and saw the English coming in
their usual solid formation stretching out for three miles. We went
back and got the cart and drove to a nearer kopje, but just as we
reached it the Boers abandoned it. Roberts's column was now much
nearer. We then drove on still further in the direction of the bridge.
I kept telling Cecil that the firing was all from the Boers as I did
not want Christian to bolt and run away with the cart and mules. But
Cecil remembered the pictures in Harper's Weekly showing the shrapnel
smoke making rings in the air and as she saw these floating over our
head, she knew the English were firing on us, but said nothing for fear
of scaring Christian. I had promised to get her under fire which was
her one wish so I said that she was now well under fire for the first
and the last time. To which she replied "Pshaw!" I never saw any one
show such self possession. We halted the cart behind a deserted farm
house, and saddled her pony. The shells were now falling all over the
shop, and I was scared to distraction. But she took about five minutes
to see that her saddle was properly tightened and then we rode up to
the hill. Again the Boers were leaving and only a few remained. They
warned her to keep back but we dismounted and walked up to the hill.
It was a very hot place but Cecil was quite unmoved. We showed her the
shells striking back of her and around her but she refused to be
impressed with the danger. She went among the Boers begging them to
make a stand very quietly and like one man to another and they took it
just in that way and said "But we are very tired. We have been driven
back for three days. We are only a thousand, they are twenty
thousand." Some of them only sat still too proud to run, too sick to
fight! When the British got within five hundred yards of the artillery
I told her she must run. At the same moment Botha's men a mile on our
right broke away in a mad gallop, as though the lancers were after
them. I finally got her on her pony and we raced for Ventersberg with
Christian a good first. He had lost all desire to out-span.

At Ventersberg we found every one harnessing up in the stre