y.
That night, the column rested upon the veldt at Vlaakfontein.

After the rush of the day, its hope and its succeeding
disappointment, Weldon was long in falling asleep. Carew was out on
picket; Captain Frazer, coat off and sleeves rolled to his
shoulders, was busy among the wounded, and Weldon had cared to make
few other close friends in the squadron. Around him, he could hear
the murmurs of other sleepless ones; but he lay silent, his arms
under his head, his face turned upward to the shining perspective of
the stars. In similar perspective there ranged them-selves before
his mind the events of the past twelve weeks.

Already the month at Piquetberg Road seemed a chapter out of another
volume. It had culminated in that languid afternoon spent around the
tea-table under the wattle tree in the garden, culminated there and
also ended there. With the unexpectedness that marks all things in a
time of war, the next noon found him steaming across the Cape Flats,
with Maitland in sight. Two days later, they were loaded on an empty
hospital ship returning to Durban. Piquetberg Road was child's play
now, for the front was almost in sight. The voyage had been beastly;
but after it had come the real beginning of things. Natal, in those
days of late February, had seemed deserving of its name, a true
Garden of Africa. The crossing was now a memory of heavy grades, of
verdant country, of ripened fruits. There had been the week's delay
at Pietermaritzburg where they had tasted a bit of civilization in
the intervals of completing their outfits; there had been the brief
stop at Ladysmith, already recovered from her hardships of the year
before, then the crossing the border into the Transvaal where the
verdure slowly vanished to give place to the dreary wastes of red-brown
veldt. At Johannesburg, he had manufactured an excuse for a
long letter to Ethel who--

"Show a leg there!"

The sergeant's voice at his ear called him back to the realities of
life. He sat up as alertly as if he had slept upon eider-down.

By eight o'clock, Weldon was out on the veldt, two miles from camp.
Before him, a force of Yeomanry was guarding the two guns; around
him, a detail from his own squadron protected the flank on the
right. And, still farther to the right, a cloud of yellowish smoke
rose skyward across the yellower sunshine. Then, of a sudden, out
from the heart of the wall of smoke came a muffled thud and roar,
confused at first, growing str