’Am now without water, without bread, and almost without hope, save
     in Jesus Christ, my Saviour, in whom now, as ever, I trust for
     everlasting life.’

He knelt down and offered up what might well have been his last prayer, and then had a vivid impression made upon his mind that he should go in an entirely different direction from that in which he had been travelling.  After wandering in utter weariness for some time in this direction, he saw in the dim distance a cart moving across the veldt.  With all the strength he had left, he shouted.  Presently the cart stopped, and he saw a man dismount.  Slowly he came near, covering the poor, weary wanderer with his rifle.  Who it was—­Briton or Boer—­Mr. Lowry did not know and hardly did he care.  It was his one chance of life, and ‘all that a man hath will he give for his life.’  In his exhausted state, the heat and fury of the battle seemed as nothing to the intense loneliness and desolation of the veldt.

But a ‘friend’ drew near, for the man who so slowly came towards him was a Rimington Scout, and he and his comrade in the cart soon carried their chaplain to help and deliverance.  They were in charge of some battle-field loot which they were taking temporarily to a Dutchman’s house of which they had possession.  Here there was a feather bed, and, what was better still, food and drink.  That same night the scouts were ordered to Belmont, and back with them went the wandering chaplain, still weary and faint, to carry with him as long as he lived the memory of his awful experience upon the veldt.

They were burying the dead when Mr. Lowry returned to Belmont.  The first to fall on that fearful day had been Corporal Honey.  He had given his heart to God on the passage out, and great was the rejoicing of the comrades who had led him to Christ that he had been able to bear a good testimony until that fateful morning.

=At the Battle of Modder River.=

Then followed Graspan or Enslin, where the Naval Brigade suffered so seriously; and then the fight that Lord Methuen considered the most terrible in British history—­the battle of the Modder River.  For twelve hours the battle continued.  They had had a long and wearying march and were looking forward to a good breakfast, but instead they had to go straight into the fight, and it was twelve hours before that breakfast came.  Men who fought at Dargai and Omdurman tell us that these were mere child’s play compared with the fight of the Modder River.  Hour after hour the firing was maintained, until in many cases the ammunition was all expended.  And yet there was no relief.  The pitiless rain of bullets from the Boer fortifications continued, and it was impossible to carry ammunition to our lads through such a fire.  Our men could in many cases neither advance nor retire, and men who had expended all their ammunition had just to lie still—­some of them for six hours—­while the bullets flew like hail just above them.  To raise the head the merest trifle from the dust meant death.  Many a godless lad prayed then, who had never prayed before, and many a forgotten vow was registered afresh in the hour of danger.