Monday came and went quietly enough, the enemy’s attention being given entirely to Kenilworth.  It made no difference to us whether the cattle lived or died; we regarded the assault as a waste of energy.  A few horses—­the irony of it!—­were slaughtered by the shells intended for the oxen.  The mutilation of the latter would have been far more advantageous to the Civil “Situation,” and—­how nice if the Boers had been better shots!

Throughout Tuesday a good many interchanges took place between the rival artillerists.  Long Cecil made some excellent practice, while the Boers occupied themselves with Beaconsfield.  A few raps were attempted at the Sanatorium hall-door, as an intimation that a special eye ogled the visitors; and some projectiles which fell in the rear of the Kimberley Club indicated that the same vigilant optic was alive to the fact that Rhodes lunched there.  It may here be mentioned that Mr. Rhodes often brought his lunch—­fresh eggs and the like!—­to the hospital to give to some wounded soldier with unimpaired digestive mechanism.  Otto’s Kopje was assailed during the day, and havoc was played with a few trucks—­rusted with ease—­at the railway station.

The inevitable calm which precedes a storm was felt on Wednesday.  The morning passed quietly.  Whispers of imminent woe were painfully common.  Rumour, subordinating love, ruled “the Court, the camp, the grove.”  It was not literally defined, this surpassing evil; its exact nature was locked up in the breasts of the Authorities.  Hours rolled by; dinner-time (the time for dinner) passed; sufficient for the day is the evil thereof; we were beginning to think that we had received the day’s allotment, when a boom rang through the startled air!  Now, a boom (in warfare) is not an harmonious note; but one gets accustomed to discord as to most other things.  It was not the boom that was strange; it was the loud, unearthly chord it seemed to strike; the dread whiz which followed; which blanched faces, and sent the timid housemaid diving beneath the bed out of harm’s way.  Was it an earthquake?—­the buildings shook.  A fearful crash dissipated the notion.  A fearful crash, indeed; but a material sound—­a relief from its weird, unnerving prelude.  Individuals living miles apart asserted that the missile had seemed to shoot past their ears.  Yet one shell had caused all the tumult.  The awful whiz was repeated again and again.  The great six-inch gun from Mafeking had started its work of destruction.  The crisis had come.  The last and bloodiest act of the tragedy had begun—­with no knowledge on our side that it was the last, to sustain us.

It had come without warning; when the heat was insufferable, and the town a veritable Sahara as regards facilities for quenching thirst; when the tension was at its worst; when sickness, disease, and death were busiest.  It had come, in fine, with a crown for the sorrows of Kimberley.