We determined to try on the night of the 11th of December, making up our minds quite suddenly in the morning, for these things are best done on the spur of the moment.  I passed the afternoon in positive terror.  Nothing, since my schooldays, has ever disturbed me so much as this.  There is something appalling in the idea of stealing secretly off in the night like a guilty thief.  The fear of detection has a pang of its own.  Besides, we knew quite well that on occasion, even on excuse, the sentries would fire.  Fifteen yards is a short range.  And beyond the immediate danger lay a prospect of severe hardship and suffering, only faint hopes of success, and the probability at the best of five months in Pretoria Gaol.

The afternoon dragged tediously away.  I tried to read Mr. Lecky’s ‘History of England,’ but for the first time in my life that wise writer wearied me.  I played chess and was hopelessly beaten.  At last it grew dark.  At seven o’clock the bell for dinner rang and the officers trooped off.  Now was the time.  But the sentries gave us no chance.  They did not walk about.  One of them stood exactly opposite the only practicable part of the wall.  We waited for two hours, but the attempt was plainly impossible, and so with a most unsatisfactory feeling of relief to bed.

Tuesday, the 12th!  Another day of fear, but fear crystallising more and more into desperation.  Anything was better than further suspense.  Night came again.  Again the dinner bell sounded.  Choosing my opportunity I strolled across the quadrangle and secreted myself in one of the offices.  Through a chink I watched the sentries.  For half an hour they remained stolid and obstructive.  Then all of a sudden one turned and walked up to his comrade and they began to talk.  Their backs were turned.  Now or never.  I darted out of my hiding place and ran to the wall, seized the top with my hands and drew myself up.  Twice I let myself down again in sickly hesitation, and then with a third resolve scrambled up.  The top was flat.  Lying on it I had one parting glimpse of the sentries, still talking, still with their backs turned; but, I repeat, fifteen yards away.  Then I lowered myself silently down into the adjoining garden and crouched among the shrubs.  I was free.  The first step had been taken, and it was irrevocable.

It now remained to await the arrival of my comrade.  The bushes of the garden gave a good deal of cover, and in the moonlight their shadows lay black on the ground.  Twenty yards away was the house, and I had not been five minutes in hiding before I perceived that it was full of people; the windows revealed brightly lighted rooms, and within I could see figures moving about.  This was a fresh complication.  We had always thought the house unoccupied.  Presently—­how long afterwards I do not know, for the ordinary measures of time, hours, minutes, and seconds are quite meaningless on such occasions—­a man came out of the