More news in the afternoon—­the wrong sort again.  A faded (pink) copy of the Cape Argus was mysteriously smuggled through.  Not a line of it alluded to Magersfontein.  A screw was loose somewhere; our distrust of the Military increased.  Could it be, was it conceivable that Methuen had been worsted at Magersfontein?  That indeed was a reasonable conclusion to draw from the reticence of our Rulers.  But it was not strictly logical, and besides—­we liked it not.  We preferred to attribute the silence to a way they have in the army; to the Colonel, who did not take tea with our Editor (it was said)—­for Special reasons.  We sympathised with the boycott; but the conduct of the “sojers” tended to cause a reaction in the Editor’s favour.  Our paper would tell the truth and shame the devil if the Censor, who was also a “sojer,” did not unblushingly forbid it.  We were oddly ingenious at times when the monotony clamoured for variation.

But to return to the Argus.  It was affecting in its puffery of the beefsteak pudding that ninepence purchased in Cape Town; and poignantly prolix in its conception of how Horatius held the bridge of Modder River some five-and-twenty years ago (sic).  The Boers, we gathered, had been knocked about at Ladysmith, and Mr. Morley had sympathised with them in London.  All this would have been entertaining, even exciting, before Magersfontein; but after? it annoyed us.

On Saturday a sort of “boiling oil” turn was given by the rumour-monger.  We heard wild stories concerning the annihilation of the British army.  The air was red with blood.  No importance was attached to these ghastly theories—­they were nothing more—­but their effects were depressing; they threw an atmosphere of gloom over the city, which was reflected in a thousand faces.  What was once a “frigid falsehood” had been modified to mean a “gross exaggeration.”  This connoted a slight departure from sentiment, a tendency to reason, to think more dispassionately.  Anxious as we were to get again in touch with the world and what it could offer to eat, we could no longer evade the sorrowful conclusion that siege figures, like every other, make four of two and two.

In the distance the cannon kept booming intermittently; nothing but boom.  Our besiegers’ guns were being used to check the advance of Methuen.  There remained only one piece of ordnance, nicknamed “Old Susannah,” to keep Kimberley in order.  The Premier Mine was the recipient of some lumps of love from this amorous gipsy; but nobody was smitten by her charms.

The death of the Mayor of Beaconsfield was announced in the afternoon.  In him the Town Guard lost a capable captain, and Kimberley a worthy citizen.  Saturday was Dingaan’s day—­a sad reminder of the rejoicings associated with the anniversary, and which had to be skipped for once.  Despite the prevailing glumness, however, the populace turned out to patronise a gymkhana entertainment at the Light Horse camp.  The bands of the two regiments contributed musical selections; admission was free (which accounted for a packed “house"); but when the hat was artfully passed round for our charity we winced, and were only partially satisfied that it was at our discretion surreptitiously to put in it what we would from a button to a shilling.