out his horses by taking them round twelve miles to avoid
six men.

Our only "casualty" was carried out of action in a stretcher--he was a
member of the volunteer company of the Northamptons.

"They've got me, sir," he said to me, in tones of mingled pride and
martyrdom, "'it in the leg."

As a matter of fact, the man was only scratched; he could easily walk,
but could not resist the circumstance of the stretcher; and he fell into
his place for the rest of the march, a very proud man.

We bivouacked at Granaatz Plaatz farm that night, whence the heliograph
winked the news of our engagement to our camp. It was a day of alternate
sunshine and cloud, and the messages gave the signallers much trouble. I
had one to send after the official messages, and the sun was getting low
by the time it began. The shine never lasted for more than twenty
seconds, but they managed to edge the words into the blinks until they
came to "Zwaartzkopjesfontein." The sun always gave out in the middle of
it; the regulations demanded that the word should be begun afresh every
time, and finally the sun sank victoriously on the fell word. Darkness
set in, and a blinding thunderstorm with deluges of rain, but the
signallers were not to be beaten.

"We'll do ut on the lamp, sorr, and divil take the ould sun for goin'
out on us," said the Irish sergeant.

I should not like to say how many people had to do with that message
before it got near the cable. In the first place, the light could hardly
penetrate the twelve-mile space of rain; and even when they had
succeeded in "calling up" headquarters the lightning flashes interfered
with our feeble dots and dashes. I shall always remember that little
group of men working most admirably on the kopje high up amid the storm
and rain--one lying on his face in the mud with a telescope propped on a
stone reading the reply; another keeping the paper dry under his helmet
while he spelt the message to the operator; and a third working the
shutter that, by occulting the light, makes flashes from the lamp.

"_Guardian_--G-u-a-r-d-i-a-n," says the reader.

"Bang, bang; rattle; bang, rattle, rattle; bang; bang, bang, rattle;
bang, rattle; bang, rattle, rattle; bang, bang, bang," goes the lamp.

An anxious pause is enlivened by a clap of thunder.

"Answered," says Spy-glass. And often a word had to be repeated three or
four times before it was answered, but at the fourth letter of
"Zwaartzkopjesfontein" the an