ver now, and that for the future Buller will trust no one but
himself in great matters; and it is because they believe this that the
soldiers are looking forward with confidence and eagerness to the third
and last attempt--for the sands at Ladysmith have run down very low--to
shatter the Boer lines.

We have waited a week in the camp behind Spearman's Hill. The General
has addressed the troops himself. He has promised that we shall be in
Ladysmith soon. To replace the sixteen hundred killed and wounded in the
late actions, drafts of twenty-four hundred men have arrived. A
mountain battery, A Battery R.H.A., and two great fortress guns have
strengthened the artillery. Two squadrons of the 14th Hussars have been
added to the cavalry, so that we are actually to-day numerically
stronger by more than a thousand men than when we fought at Spion Kop,
while the Boers are at least five hundred weaker--attrition _versus_
recuperation. Everyone has been well fed, reinforced and inspirited, and
all are prepared for a supreme effort, in which we shall either reach
Ladysmith or be flung back truly beaten with a loss of six or seven
thousand men.

I will not try to foreshadow the line of attack, though certain
movements appear to indicate where it will be directed. But it is
generally believed that we fight to-morrow at dawn, and as I write this
letter seventy guns are drawing up in line on the hills to open the
preparatory bombardment.

It is a solemn Sunday, and the camp, with its white tents looking snug
and peaceful in the sunlight, holds its breath that the beating of its
heart may not be heard. On such a day as this the services of religion
would appeal with passionate force to thousands. I attended a church
parade this morning. What a chance this was for a man of great soul who
feared God! On every side were drawn up deep masses of soldiery, rank
behind rank--perhaps, in all, five thousand. In the hollow square stood
the General, the man on whom everything depended. All around were men
who within the week had been face to face with Death, and were going to
face him again in a few hours. Life seemed very precarious, in spite of
the sunlit landscape. What was it all for? What was the good of human
effort? How should it befall a man who died in a quarrel he did not
understand? All the anxious questionings of weak spirits. It was one of
those occasions when a fine preacher might have given comfort and
strength where both were so