he
fire of the 4th battery, worked rapidly towards the Pass, driving
scattered parties before them, and by 2 p.m. had reached favourable
ground within 1,500 yards of it. Here Stephenson deployed the 2nd
Wiltshire regiment, and sent it forward with orders to establish
itself within 800 yards of the enemy, unless heavily fired upon whilst
advancing. This the Wiltshire, moving in six lines 100 yards apart,
did without loss, under a fire so trifling that the enemy seemed to be
falling back, and Stephenson sent word to the General requesting
permission to push the attack home. But French, who knew his
opponents, had grown suspicious because of their silence. The hour was
late, the cavalry turning movement had not been carried out, and
finally instructions from the Commander-in-Chief had enjoined him to
avoid serious fighting.[281] At 4 p.m., therefore, he gave the order
to retire, and the Wiltshire firing lines rose to obey. Scarcely had
they done so, before a burst of fire, both of rifles and guns, from
the enemy's ridges, showed the nature of the trap that had been
prepared. But in spite of the heavy fusilade which followed them back,
the Wiltshire, retiring as steadily as they had advanced, rejoined the
column with a loss of but ten men wounded. The whole force then
returned to its bivouacs.

[Footnote 281: See pages 434-5.]

[Sidenote: French, Jan. 29th, is summoned to Cape Town.]

This reconnaissance, though it failed to give General French the
Poort, succeeded in disclosing to him the nature of the enemy's
dispositions in this neighbourhood, especially of those behind the
hitherto impenetrable Grassy Hill. Such knowledge might have gone far
towards a solution of the problem which had so long engaged his
energies, the ousting of the Boers from their stronghold on British
territory. The more vital portion of his task, the prevention of a
further inroad into the colony, he had already performed. He was now
to be called away to a wider field. On January 29th he went down to
Cape Town to receive instructions from the Commander-in-Chief. He
returned to Rensburg on the 31st to break up his command. On February
6th he finally left Rensburg, after issuing an order in which he paid
full tribute to the courage and energy of staff and troops, who had so
long held in check "an enemy whose adroit skill in war demands the
most untiring vigilance."[282] With French went all the Regular
cavalry, except two squadrons, and a