spatch-carrier and scout, and I have been
instructed to make use of your services if you feel so disposed. Are
you ready to do something more for us? Of course, we have all heard how
you and young Poynter got through from Ladysmith, and I may tell you
that it is a service of a similar nature for which we want you now."

"Certainly, sir," Jack answered with a flush. "I am prepared to
undertake anything in the nature of despatch-carrying or scouting that
may be given me, and if Kimberley is the destination for the messages so
much the better, for I have friends in there whom I am anxious to meet
again."

"Then, my lad, this is the very job to suit you!" the staff-officer
exclaimed. "Shortly put, the service which you are asked to undertake
is this--ride to Kimberley and carry a letter and verbal instructions to
its commanding officer, and afterwards return to us. There is a big and
most important movement afoot. But I will tell you about it later, when
we arrive at the Modder River. It is a great satisfaction to hear that
we may rely upon you."

"It's just the thing I should like," Jack remarked eagerly. Then,
seeing that his new acquaintance did not care, for some reason, to
discuss the matter further at that moment, he changed the conversation.
Soon they descended to the saloon for breakfast, and from that day until
they reached the Modder River below Kimberley they were constantly
together.

While they are being swiftly conveyed along the South African coast we
will leave them laughing and chatting, and return for a few moments to
Old England to view matters there.

At first the news of the reverses at Magersfontein, Stormberg, and
Colenso found her like one in a dream. "Was it true," she asked
herself, "that her brave and hitherto invincible troops had been thus
hardly dealt with by a horde of men who were little more than
uncivilised peasants? Could it be a fact that the Boer forces were far
more numerous than had been imagined, and that in guns and ammunition
they were so abundantly supplied that our cannon and the shells we fired
were swamped and sometimes altogether outranged? Could these facts be
true?" It was almost impossible to believe them. But for all that,
unpalatable though the truth was, the reality of it all quickly dawned
upon the country. The beginning of the war had found our millions
resolved as one man to carry it through to a successful issue, and now,
instead of weeping over pa