and out of which he had marched in the dark
that same morning. His thirst consumed him, he could walk no further, he
was utterly exhausted. How many miles he had wandered he could not tell.
The din of battle had died away, and all was one unbroken stillness. He
sat down under the scanty shade of a thorn bush, and with a feeling of
intense desolation upon him made the following entry in his
pocket-book:--

'Am now without water, without bread, and almost without hope, save
in Jesus Christ, my Saviour, in whom now, as ever, I trust for
everlasting life.'

He knelt down and offered up what might well have been his last prayer,
and then had a vivid impression made upon his mind that he should go in
an entirely different direction from that in which he had been
travelling. After wandering in utter weariness for some time in this
direction, he saw in the dim distance a cart moving across the veldt.
With all the strength he had left, he shouted. Presently the cart
stopped, and he saw a man dismount. Slowly he came near, covering the
poor, weary wanderer with his rifle. Who it was--Briton or Boer--Mr.
Lowry did not know and hardly did he care. It was his one chance of
life, and 'all that a man hath will he give for his life.' In his
exhausted state, the heat and fury of the battle seemed as nothing to
the intense loneliness and desolation of the veldt.

But a 'friend' drew near, for the man who so slowly came towards him
was a Rimington Scout, and he and his comrade in the cart soon carried
their chaplain to help and deliverance. They were in charge of some
battle-field loot which they were taking temporarily to a Dutchman's
house of which they had possession. Here there was a feather bed, and,
what was better still, food and drink. That same night the scouts were
ordered to Belmont, and back with them went the wandering chaplain,
still weary and faint, to carry with him as long as he lived the memory
of his awful experience upon the veldt.

They were burying the dead when Mr. Lowry returned to Belmont. The first
to fall on that fearful day had been Corporal Honey. He had given his
heart to God on the passage out, and great was the rejoicing of the
comrades who had led him to Christ that he had been able to bear a good
testimony until that fateful morning.

=At the Battle of Modder River.=

Then followed Graspan or Enslin, where the Naval Brigade suffered so
seriously; and then the fight that Lord Methue