Amid such gala surroundings the week ended.  We were still in the dark, the doings of the Column were yet enveloped in mystery.  The thunder of its artillery had lost its charm, and indeed a great deal of its noise.  Dame Rumour, the lying jade, was saying nasty things, but downhearted—­what! not much!  The last flash on Saturday night was from a manufactured gem.  The Boer Army was in Cape Town, if you please!—­with their guns on Table Mountain—­and all the Britons in the sea—­swimming home to dear old England!  Well, no matter; Kimberley would fight on, constitute a “new Capital,” perhaps, or fall, if fate ordained it, with its face to the foe.

CHAPTER X

Week ending 23d December, 1899

Everything was going from bad to worse, and though the tropical weather was not conducive to heartiness of appetite the dishes on our tables were distressing.  To attempt to compute the countless creature comforts missing at this stage of our sorrows would be ridiculous; nor do I propose inflicting on the reader a reiteration of what remained to keep body and soul together.  Discussion on the Column and its catering potentialities had come to be proscribed, and lamentations over the sufferings of the inner man were as bitter as if all hope of alleviation had vanished for ever and hunger was to be our portion for all time.  Indeed, when matters became worse a better spirit of resignation was manifested.  To the seasoned campaigner roughing it on the Karoo our fare, plenty of it, might seem good, luxurious even; but to us, with very little of it, surrounded by the civilising influences of knives and forks, serviettes, plates, teapots, no end of pepper and insufficient salt—­it wore a different aspect and seemed anything but luxurious.  Yet that was our position day after day, Sunday after Sunday, and the irony growing grimmer all along with unfailing regularity.  At the camps the menu was practically the same, but the graces of civilisation were happily less in evidence there.  There were fortunate possessors of aviaries, and people who owned hens that produced no protoplasmic fruit, who could have a bird for dinner occasionally.  A brisk business in fowls was done in the streets.  The birds fetched enormous prices.  Very young ones of sparrow proportions, not long out of the shell, were slaughtered wholesale, to pander to the palate of—­perchance a member of the Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals.  And here a tribute is due to him or her who, rising above the selfishness—­the siege selfishness—­of the majority, invited a friend now and then to share their good fortune.  There were such noble souls; their numbers were few—­not ten per cent, of those in a position to be hospitable—­but all the more precious for their rarity.  It was a sight to fill one with envy to see the cherished chickens being carried through the streets as carefully