on the
nerves; their unearthly melody must be heard. It sounded incidental to
carnage, and wailed forth that the enemy was at last about to grapple
with us. The shops were promptly closed; employers and employees rushed
off in carts, on bicycles, or on foot to their respective redoubts. It
was admirable: the readiness, the despatch with which every man hurried
to his place. Women and children--liable to arrest--hastened to their
homes. Soon the streets were completely deserted, save by the alert
constable who walked his 'beat'--ready wherever he saw a head (outside a
door) to crack it. All ears were strained to hear the first shot; and
the suspense was probably more poignant than in later times when we had
grown accustomed to the cry of wolf.

But there was no first shot; the cautious Boer had not made up his mind
to beat us just yet. By a series of elaborate movements he had affected
to gird his loins for a swoop that nothing could withstand, and adroitly
managed the while to capture some oxen and horses--the property of our
local Sanitary Conductors. When this was discovered, a batch of mounted
men were deputed to ride out and question the legality of the
proceedings. The enemy, nothing loth, opened the arguments themselves
with a pungent volley, and when our side proceeded to reply, through a
similar medium, the other would not listen. Later in the afternoon the
Light Horse went out again, and got near enough to unlimber their guns
and to plant a few shells among the Boers who guarded the route to the
Reservoir. In this skirmish one of the Cape Police was killed--a
regrettable circumstance which brought our list of deaths up to five.

The enemy still kept showing signs of activity, and of resolution to
make it not only impossible to get out of Kimberley, but also unpleasant
to live in it. They brought a gun as close as they dared to the De Beers
Mine, and impudently endeavoured to shell it. They seized a second
position at Kamfers Dam, and placed a second gun there. We had good
people in Kimberley who asserted that the gentle Boer knew not how to
use a gun; that he considered it so much lumber, an incumbrance. These
were apart from the school given to postulate that the farmers had _no
guns_ to use. No need to say that both theories were dispelled, by sight
as well as by hearing. Much attention was devoted to Otto's Kopje--our
most exposed position--and many missiles dropped dangerously close to
it. They burst, too