he _Officers_ in
the field extended to the town, for the Chief of the firemen was struck
while standing on his own doorstep. He received a few ugly cuts, as also
did two of his children.

And where all this time, it may be asked, where was Long Cecil? Long
Cecil had been doing its best, but with the odds so long as ten to one
against, its best was a negligible quantity. It sent shell after shell
in one direction, then in another, but the enemy heeded it not at all;
and though it may have irritated the Boer a little and done all that one
gun of its calibre could do, it did not mitigate the perils of the
populace. That it had done its best was undeniable, but it sank in the
public esteem for other reasons. It was reputed to have killed two women
in the Boer camp with its "compliments." I cannot vouch for the truth of
the story, but it was seized upon to intensify the growing aversion to
the whilom bepraised product of Colonial enterprise. The report
converted hostile head-shakes into voluble "I told you so's," and
swelled the feeble chorus that had prophesied ill of Long Cecil from the
beginning.

Why did the Military insist on aggravating the enemy? This was our new
shibboleth. We had, practically speaking, been left unmolested until
Long Cecil sounded its timbrel. Hence the bloody sequel! Now, all this
would have been in better taste had not those of us loudest in the gun's
condemnation been equally boastful anent the fear it was to put into the
hearts of the Boers. They were to be taught that Long Cecil was a thing
to conjure with. In fact, Long Cecil had accentuated what is known in
vulgar parlance as the Jingo spirit. But it had failed to come up to
expectations, and all that was left--the dregs of our chivalry--was
gone; and perhaps the highest form of chivalry extant now-a-days is
consistency. The forty-eight hours' bombardment had been threatened long
ere Long Cecil emerged from the workshop in the panoply war. But it was
enough for the nonce to have even an inanimate scape-goat with which to
relieve our grief--in the absence of something mellow to _drown_ it in.

Firing ceased at six o'clock, and many families, waiving the discomforts
of the trek, had already betaken themselves to the redoubts, away from
the centre of assault. They remained there all night, needlessly, as it
happened. Friday was not looked to with any particular pleasure; but
apart from some deliberate attempts to snap-shot the _Sanatorium_ we