h him?"

_T._ "About six, sir; and I am the only one left alive to tell the
tale!"

_B._ "How truly awful! and if you don't get on with it your tale will
outlast all of us as well. (_Roughly_) Now, throw it out,--what
happened?"

_T._ "Well, sir, you see that farm over there (_pointing to low seam
of grey hills about four miles distant on our left flank, at the
bottom of which nestled a homestead_), we were riding up to it
quiet-like, when suddenly, as we were passing a kraal, up jumps about
fifty Boers and calls us to ''ands up.' We wouldn't ''ands up,' and
they shot us down to a man, and----!"

_B._ "Wait--how did you get away from the general battue?"

_T._ "I don't exactly know, sir; I kind of found myself galloping for
all I was worth, and the bullets just 'umming that thick and awful,
that I kept on asking myself the whole way home 'ow it was I managed
to escape!"

_B._ "You may go. Stop! where's your rifle?"

_T._ (_for the first time realising that he had not got a rifle_). "I
must have dropped it, sir, in the scrimmage--it was awful 'ot, sir!"

_B._ (_brutally_). "Off you go; you ought to be ashamed to talk to
honest men. (_Then turning to the brigade-major._) Look here, Baker,
though I don't believe the man's story _in toto_, or would believe any
man who in panic had thrown his rifle away, yet something has
happened, and either our men on the left have fallen in with the party
of Boers who crossed our trail this morning, or we have let slip the
whole 'bag of tricks,' and De Wet is through us. Just you take another
squadron of the Mount Nelsons and see what has happened on the left.
You can also take the pom-pom. Unless the enemy are in strength don't
stay out there long, as I shall probably move on before you are back.
Anyway I shall leave a signal-station on the hill above us!"

_Brigade-Major._ "Very good, sir."

_B._ "Wait a moment. As the rain-storm has dished my original plans, I
shall probably, as soon as I hear from Fauresmith, send half my force
direct to the Kalabas bridge, and take the rest to support the Mount
Nelson squadrons. But I can make no definite statement until I have
some idea of De Wet's force. Gad! I wish I knew where Plumer might be
at this moment, or whether there is any one behind De Wet. Without
information or maps, this is an uphill game!"...

In half an hour the brigade-major's little command was within a
thousand yards of Liebenbergspan farm. Here they met five woe-b