t falling.
Beaconsfield appeared to be the most favoured hunting ground, for its
_Sanatorium_ was not only a colossal structure but the home of the
Colossus himself. Hundreds of shells dropped in its vicinity, while the
millionaire went round the city in a cart, to all outward seeming as
little concerned as the most penurious of men. Some weeks before a
grazier who had fallen into the hands of the Boers had been assured that
it was Rhodes they wanted--not Kimberley. Such a revelation in the case
of a personality less notable or less esteemed might have made things
awkward for him.

Forty-five minutes were allowed for lunch--an interval which the Boers
considered long enough for them--and no doubt for us, too, since they
might fairly assume that we did not get much to eat. But on our side
there was the trouble and delay involved in the getting of it. To jostle
about in a crowd for an indefinite period of time for sake of a scrap of
flesh meat--and such meat! such flesh!--required rare ravenousness of
appetite; and the bursting of a shell in the midst of a surging mass of
humanity was so certain to be attended by fatal results that it was only
the very healthy who bothered battling for so little.

The forty-five minutes were of brief duration, and the assault was
promptly renewed when the clock struck two. First came the boom; then
the warning whistle; next the boom of a second gun almost before the
bursting crash of the first shell had proclaimed its contact with _terra
firma_. It was not the numbers of the killed (because they were
marvellously few) that awed the people so much as the possibilities of
the situation. The guns were fired at long range, and ten or fifteen
seconds had to elapse ere anybody could be sure that his turn had not
come. Had a closer range been feasible the bombardment might have been
more destructive, but the suspense would have been less trying. The
shells fell thickly the whole afternoon. Never, hardly ever, was there a
lull as the iron roofs of the houses continued to be fitted for service
as rough observatories which enabled us to see balloons indeed. Several
mourners attending a funeral on its way to the cemetery narrowly escaped
dismemberment, by a missile which dropped behind the hearse. The Fire
Brigade were alert and ready for contingencies; the brigade station at
the Municipal compound was singled out for attack; and it looked as if
the skill of the Boers in picking out and disabling t