t Mafeking gave them
guns, and now they run about stealing and murdering. All last night I
dared not move from here, although we have no food. I was afraid, and so
were these ladies, knowing they were jumping about. Now I go to my
farm."

He called a black boy, who presently brought round a miserable cart
drawn by two skeleton ponies. One of the women got in. There was no need
to ask the fierce little cripple why he had not been on commando, and I
was wondering how he was going to get into the cart, when he gave a
great leap, and, climbing nimbly into his seat, drove away.

When he had gone the woman of the house began to pour out a woeful tale.
Her husband--was he dead or alive? No news for three months; no letters
or telegrams. Even the casualty lists had ceased to reach them. Her babe
was dying for want of milk food. Could I give her a tin? General
Hunter's men had broken up her kraal to use the wood for burning, and
all her goats had wandered off and she had no one to send to look for
them. These few logs of wood were all she had to bake bread with; would
I ask the General to see that the soldiers did not take them? And then
the Kaffirs! It was a piteous tale launched on a flood of tears.
Possibly it was exaggerated; people have different ways of asking for
help; but the terror in the woman's eye when she spoke of the Kaffirs
was genuine. And I remembered the cripple's phrase--"The Kaffirs are
jumping about."

Captain Bell-Smythe, the brigade major, came up presently, and I found
him willing, as he and General Mahon had always been, to listen with
patience to the long recital of woe. A sentry was put over the house
and gardens to protect them from the desecrating foot of Tommy, and I
know that a tin of milk was furnished out of the scanty stores of the
headquarters' mess.

As for the Kaffirs, that trouble turned out to be a very real one. On
the next day's march four were captured by a patrol of General Barton
and shot, and it almost seems as though their blood were upon the heads
of those who failed to disarm them after the siege of Mafeking was
raised. I heard that the reason given was that it would offend the
Barralongs, who had fought so bravely in defence of their staadt; but
surely it had been better to offend them than allow them to run their
heads into a noose. The Kaffir trouble was like a shadow on our march;
they imagined that they had old scores to pay off; they paid them with
remarkable fidelity to