’But before very long we were at liberty again.  A flag of truce had been sent out by General White, expostulating with the Boer general, and resulted in the general in question—­General Erasmus—­galloping up to tell us we were at liberty to continue our work, only we must be as quick about it as possible.  Fifty-one wounded men we found, three of them officers, and nine killed, of whom one was an officer.  At the foot of the hill that they had won we buried them, marking the place where they lay with stones heaped over the grave in the form of a cross.  Then we wearily returned to camp, for by then the day was far spent, and we had had nothing to eat since dawn.  That night I was again called to perform the sad ceremony of burial.  Four men had died of their wounds during the day, and in darkness it had to be done, for the cemetery is within reach of the enemy’s guns, and we feared to show a light, lest it should “draw fire.”  So I recited as much of the Burial Service as I could remember, and offered an extemporary prayer.  It was a strange experience thus to bury our comrades by stealth; but, alas! during these latter days it has ceased to seem strange, because of its frequency.’

=Work in Ladysmith Town.=

Meanwhile in the town, and sometimes with the soldiers in the fight, Mr. Cawood and Mr. Hardy were rendering splendid service.  Mr. Cawood kept in good health throughout, but when, on the relief of Ladysmith, the President of the South African Conference (Rev. W. Wynne) visited the town, he reported that Mr. Cawood looked ten years older.  No wonder that such was the case, for he was in labours more abundant, and nothing was too mean or trivial for him to perform.  Such was also the case with Mr. Hardy.  He did not seem to know fear.  Brave when the bullets fell thick, he was just as brave in the midst of the strain of hospital work.  He was but a visitor in the town, and had no official connection with either troops or civilian church.  But he turned his hand to anything, and when the hospitals were crowded and workers were few, he actually had himself appointed a hospital orderly, and performed the meanest and most loathsome duties of the hospital nurse.  He kept in good health to the last, and then almost every disease seemed to come upon him at once.  For long he lay in the agonies of enteric fever, and almost lost his life.  But he counted that not too great a gift for his Master and his country.  We honour them both—­the old veteran and the young missionary.  In fact, where all were brave and devoted, it is invidious to pick out one or two of these devoted men for special mention.  Each in his own special sphere tried bravely to do his duty.  Meanwhile the town was becoming full of enteric cases, for Intombi camp had no further accommodation, and only the most serious cases could be sent there.  The churches were then, as already intimated, utilised as hospitals, and it was in them that the chaplains left in Ladysmith and with the soldiers performed their ministry of love.  Most of these buildings at some time or other felt the force of the Boer shells, and the native minister’s house by the side of the Wesleyan church was shattered.  He, poor fellow, lost both wife and child during the siege, and himself was laid low by enteric fever.