instruct your troop-leaders. As soon as you are
extended, canter, and improve your pace when you get sufficiently
near. That knoll on the right and the rise on the left both command
the farm, and you will find that the enemy won't stand. Good Heavens!
man (_as the captain again began to demur_), there are only about
twenty of them; surely you are not afraid!"

The man did not mean going, neither did his squadron. They dallied
over extending, and it was quite a quarter of an hour before they
began to move forward. The brigade-major dashed to the head of the
right half-squadron and tried to infuse some little enthusiasm into
them. But no; it was the very worst squadron of the Mount Nelsons, and
when the brigade-major commenced to gallop he found that he was only
followed by four men. But this even, added to half a belt from the
pom-pom, was sufficient for the Boers: they ran to their horses, which
were grazing by the kraal, mounted, and galloped over the rise,
without firing a shot. As vultures swoop down upon carrion, so the
Mount Nelsons, as soon as it was seen that the rise was clear of the
enemy, swarmed down to the looting of the farm. The brigade-major's
face was a study when he and the Mount Nelsons' captain met in the
verandah. All that he said would not add to the artistic sense of this
narrative; but he closed his remarks with the following: "If I catch a
man of your regiment touching a single article in this farm I will
shoot him myself. Get your men back to their positions, sir. They
won't fight; I'll be d----d if they shall loot!"

In war situations develop rapidly, and the brigade-major had barely
dismissed his now sulking junior, when a silver glitter from above the
halting-place of the brigade brought the laconic message, "Return at
once without delay." Precisely at the same moment a messenger came
dashing down from the rise above the farm, and excitedly reported that
a long line of Cape carts was rapidly crossing the left front. The
brigade-major started the squadron back at a trot, and stayed behind
for a few moments to make an investigation of the new development. It
was quite true, six Cape carts and about thirty men were crossing his
front from right to left at a good pace. They were a long way off, and
even if he had not had peremptory orders to return, it would have
been hopeless to have attempted to pursue them with such material as
he had in hand.

_Brigade-Major_ (_snapping his glasses back i