'Neath Thy keeping,
Lead our troops to victory.

Of our sins we make confession,
Wealth and arrogance and pride;
But our hosts, against oppression,
March with Freedom's flowing tide.
Father, speed them,
Keep them, lead them,
God of armies, be their guide.

Man of Sorrows! Thou hast sounded
Every depth of human grief.
By Thy wounds, Oh, heal our wounded.
Give the fever's fire relief.
Hear us crying
For our dying,
Of consolers be Thou chief.

Take the souls that die for duty
In Thy tender pierced hand;
Crown the faulty lives with beauty,
Offered for their Fatherland.
All forgiving,
With the living
May they in Thy kingdom stand.

And if Victory should crown us,
May we take it as from Thee
As Thy nation deign to own us;
Merciful and strong and free.
Endless praising
To Thee raising,
Ever Thine may England be!

Say their critics what they may, soldiers who compose such songs, and
pen such testimonies, and conduct such services among themselves,
seem scarcely the sort to "let hell loose in South Africa!"

[Sidenote: _A big supper party._]

Of the prisoners of war thus long detained in durance vile nearly a
thousand were decoyed into a special train the night before the
Guards' Brigade reached Pretoria. These deluded captives in their
simplicity supposed they were being taken into the town to be there
set at liberty; but instead of that they were hurried by, and, with
the panic-stricken Boers, away and yet away, into their remotest
eastern fastnesses, there presumably to be retained as long as
possible as a sort of guarantee that the vastly larger number of Boers
we held prisoners should be still generously treated by us. They might
also prove useful in many ways if terms of peace came to be
negotiated. So vanished for months their visions of speedy freedom!

The rest who still remained within the prison fence, and were, of
course, still unarmed, three days later were cruelly and treacherously
shelled by a Boer commando on a distant hill. The Boer guards detailed
for duty at the prison had deserted their posts, and under the cover
of the white flag, gone into Pretor