Fat man. I’ll take a shade of odds about it.  They will.  I’ve no trust in Chamberlain.  It’ll be just the same as it was in ’81.  A few reverses and you’ll find they’ll begin to talk about terms.  I know them.  Every loyal man in South Africa knows them. (General murmur of assent.)

Hotel-keeper. Gentlemen, drinks all round!  Here’s success to the British arms!

All. Success to the British arms!

Thick-set man. And where are the British arms?  Where’s the Army Corps?  Has a man of that Army Corps left England?  Shilly-shally, as usual.  South Africa’s no place for an Englishman to live in.  Armoured train blown up, Mafeking cut off, Kimberley in danger, and General Butler—­what?  Oh yes—­General Buller leaves England to-day.  Why didna they send the Army Corps out three months ago?

Brown-faced man. It’s six thousand miles—­

Thick-set man. Why didna they send them just after the Bloemfontein conference, before the Boers were ready?  British Gov—­

Brown-faced man. They’ve had three rifles a man with ammunition since 1896.

I (timidly).  Well, then, if the Army Corps had left three months ago, wouldn’t the Boers have declared war three months ago too?

All except brown-faced man (loudly).  No!

Brown-faced man (quietly).  Yes.  Gentlemen, bedtime!  As Brand used to say, “Al zal rijt komen!”

All (fervently).  Al zal rijt komen!  Success to the British arms!  Good night!

(All go to bed.  In the night somebody on the Boer side—­or elsewhere—­goes out shooting, or looses off his rifle on general grounds; two loyalists and a refugee spring up and grasp their revolvers.  In the morning everybody wakes up unsjamboked.  The hotel-keeper takes me out to numerous points whence Pieter’s farm can be reconnoitred:  there is not a single tent to be seen, and no sign of a single Boer.)

It is a shame to smile at them.  They are really very, very loyal, and they are excellent fellows and most desirable colonists.  Aliwal is a nest of green on the yellow veldt, speckless, well-furnished, with Marechal Niel roses growing over trellises, and a scheme to dam the Orange river for water-supply, and electric light.  They were quite unprotected, and their position was certainly humiliating.

VI.

THE BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAGTE.

     FRENCH’S RECONNAISSANCE—­AN ARTILLERY DUEL—­BEGINNING OF THE
     ATTACK—­RIDGE AFTER RIDGE—­A CROWDED HALF-HOUR.

LADYSMITH, Oct. 22.

From a billow of the rolling veldt we looked back, and black columns were coming up behind us.

Along the road from Ladysmith moved cavalry and guns.  Along the railway line to right of it crept trains—­one, two, three of them—­packed with khaki, bristling with the rifles of infantry.  We knew then that we should fight before nightfall.