The visit of an envoy from the Boer camp aroused a good deal of curiosity.  What did he want?  The Colonel would never tell.  But there was much sinister speculation abroad which, taken in conjunction with the unabating activity of the Boers, was the reverse of comforting.  The unconditional surrender of the town had, it was whispered, been demanded in explicit terms, and with equal explicitness refused.  The consequence of this refusal was the thought uppermost in every mind.  The gentlemen outside were numerically stronger than ever, and more at ease, too.  They had—­if report ever spoke truly—­intimated to the “Volunteer” camp, in some way not explained, that they had just returned from their Christmas holidays; that their absence accounted for the “quiet time” we had been enjoying; but that they would presently be giving us “beans.”  They certainly know how many make five; and their facetiousness in close proximity to a large British Column was beyond us.

There was yet another pronouncement to complete the eventfulness of the day, and to cause a lull in the domestic warfare waged against the Colonel and his Ironsides.  By dint of hard work day and night the great thirty-pound gun constructed by De Beers was finished at last.  Big things were expected from it; the surprise and consternation it was likely to create was a pleasing reflection.  The construction of such a piece of ordnance in the middle of a desert was considered something to be proud of, and that reflected credit on the genius of Mr. Labram, who had planned it.  Long Cecil (as it was called), in all its pristine perfection, was submitted to the public gaze, and was at once the cynosure of all eyes.  On Friday it was tested, with complete success.  The boom, at close quarters, was loud and alarming; and it required the despatch of a second shell to satisfy non-spectators that the gun had not been blown to pieces by the first.  A few missiles were sent into the Intermediate Station, a couple of miles distant.  Whether anyone was hurt did not transpire, but the moral effect produced was unmistakable.  A panic appeared to ensue, and vehicles of all sorts were hurriedly requisitioned to enable the Boers to get away with their goods and chattels from the Intermediate to a more healthy station.  Private letters were afterwards unearthed in which no attempt was made to conceal the alarm occasioned by this unexpected visitation.

But the new gun was only a diversion, while the stream of invective against horseflesh went on like the brook for ever.  It is an ill wind that blows nobody good; the truth of this was well exemplified in the luck of the dogs.  The poor animals looked shockingly thin and wasted, and had for a long time been unable to move about with their wonted agility in pursuit of locusts and mosquitoes.  The mongrels that had any fight or vitality left in them would engage in a terrific struggle on the streets at night for the contents of the refuse buckets which our primitive