ext day I talked to the War Secretary. I had made a large map
upon the wall and followed the course of the war as far as possible by
making squares of red and green paper to represent the various columns.
I said: 'What about Methuen? He has beaten you at Belmont. Now he should
be across the Modder. In a few days he will relieve Kimberley.' De Souza
shrugged his shoulders. 'Who can tell?' he replied; 'but,' he put his
finger on the map, 'there stands old Piet Cronje in a position called
Scholz Nek, and we don't think Methuen will ever get past him.' The
event justified his words, and the battle which we call Magersfontein
(and ought to call 'Maasfontayne') the Boers call Scholz Nek.

Long, dull, and profitless were the days. I could not write, for the ink
seemed to dry upon the pen. I could not read with any perseverance, and
during the whole month I was locked up, I only completed Carlyle's
'History of Frederick the Great' and Mill's 'Essay on Liberty,' neither
of which satisfied my peevish expectations. When at last the sun sank
behind the fort upon the hill and twilight marked the end of another
wretched day, I used to walk up and down the courtyard looking
reflectively at the dirty, unkempt 'zarps' who stood on guard, racking
my brains to find some way, by force or fraud, by steel or gold, of
regaining my freedom. Little did these Transvaal Policemen think, as
they leaned on their rifles, smoking and watching the 'tame officers,'
of the dark schemes of which they were the object, or of the peril in
which they would stand but for the difficulties that lay _beyond_ the
wall. For we would have made short work of them and their weapons any
misty night could we but have seen our way clear after that.

As the darkness thickened, the electric lamps were switched on and the
whole courtyard turned blue-white with black velvet shadows. Then the
bell clanged, and we crowded again into the stifling dining hall for the
last tasteless meal of the barren day. The same miserable stories were
told again and again--Colonel Moller's surrender after Talana Hill, and
the white flag at Nicholson's Nek--until I knew how the others came to
Pretoria as well as I knew my own story.

'We never realised what had happened until we were actually prisoners,'
said the officers of the Dublin Fusiliers Mounted Infantry, who had been
captured with Colonel Moller on October 20. 'The "cease fire" sounded:
no one knew what had happened. Then we were ord