The infantry came among the boulders and began to open out.  The supports and reserves followed up.  And then, in a twinkling, on the stone-pitted hill-face burst loose that other storm—­the storm of lead, of blood, of death.  In a twinkling the first line was down behind rocks firing fast, and the bullets came flicking round them.  Men stopped and started, staggered and dropped limply as if the string were cut that held them upright.  The line pushed on; the supports and reserves followed up.  A colonel fell, shot in the arm; the regiment pushed on.

They came to a rocky ridge about twenty feet high.  They clung to cover, firing, then rose, and were among the shrill bullets again.  A major was left at the bottom of that ridge, with his pipe in his mouth and a Mauser bullet through his leg; his company pushed on.  Down again, fire again, up again, and on!  Another ridge won and passed—­and only a more hellish hail of bullets beyond it.  More men down, more men pushed into the firing line—­more death-piping bullets than ever.  The air was a sieve of them; they beat on the boulders like a million hammers; they tore the turf like a harrow.

Another ridge crowned, another welcoming, whistling gust of perdition, more men down, more pushed into the firing line.  Half the officers were down; the men puffed and stumbled on.  Another ridge—­God!  Would this cursed hill never end?  It was sown with bleeding and dead behind; it was edged with stinging fire before.  God!  Would it never end?  On, and get to the end of it!  And now it was surely the end.  The merry bugles rang out like cock-crow on a fine morning.  The pipes shrieked of blood and the lust of glorious death.  Fix bayonets!  Staff officers rushed shouting from the rear, imploring, cajoling, cursing, slamming every man who could move into the line.  Line—­but it was a line no longer.  It was a surging wave of men—­Devons and Gordons, Manchester and Light Horse all mixed, inextricably; subalterns commanding regiments, soldiers yelling advice, officers firing carbines, stumbling, leaping, killing, falling, all drunk with battle, shoving through hell to the throat of the enemy.  And there beneath our feet was the Boer camp and the last Boers galloping out of it.  There also—­thank Heaven, thank Heaven!—­were squadrons of Lancers and Dragoon Guards storming in among them, shouting, spearing, stamping them into the ground.  Cease fire!

It was over—­twelve hours of march, of reconnaissance, of waiting, of preparation, and half an hour of attack.  But half an hour crammed with the life of half a lifetime.

VII.

THE BIVOUAC.

     A VICTORIOUS AND HELPLESS MOB—­A BREAK-NECK HILLSIDE—­BRINGING DOWN
     THE WOUNDED—­A HARD-WORKED DOCTOR—­BOER PRISONERS—­INDIAN
     BEARERS—­AN IRISH HIGHLANDER IN TROUBLE.

LADYSMITH, Oct. 23.

Pursuing cavalry and pursued enemy faded out of our sight; abruptly we realised that it was night.  A mob of unassorted soldiers stood on the rock-sown, man-sown hillside, victorious and helpless.