it seemed as if he were more than nominally the South African Napoleon.  A reverse, and Cronje was no longer the dashing, energetic leader of the month before.  Doggedly and determinedly he retraced his steps, but advanced cautiously now and then to punish the enemy for its over-confidence.  Beaten back to Kimberley by the overpowering force of the enemy, he endured defeat after defeat until finally he was compelled to abandon the siege in order to escape the attacks of a second army sent against him.  The enemy’s web had been spun around him, but he fought bravely for freedom from entanglement.  General French was on one side of him, Lord Roberts on another, Lord Kitchener on a third—­and against the experience and troops of all these men was pitted the genius of the Potchefstroom farmer.  A fight with Roberts’s Horse on Thursday, February 15th; a march of ten miles and a victorious rear-guard action with Lord Kitchener on Friday; a repulse of the forces under Lords Roberts and Kitchener on Saturday, and on Sunday morning the discovery that he and his four thousand men in the river-bed at Paardeberg were surrounded by forty thousand troops of the enemy—­that was a four days’ record which caused the Lion of Potchefstroom merely to show his fangs to his enemy.

When General Cronje entered the river-bed on Saturday he was certain that he could fight his way out on the following day.  Scores of his burghers appealed to him to trek eastward that night, and Commandant-General Ferreira, of the Free State, asked him to trek north-east in order that their two Boer forces might effect a junction, but Cronje was determined to remain in the positions he then occupied until he could carry all his transport-waggons safely away.  In the evening Commandants De Beer and Grobler urged the general to escape and explained to him that he would certainly be surrounded the following day, but Cronje steadfastly declined, and expressed his ability to fight a way through any force of the enemy.  Even late that night, while the British troops were welding the chain which was to bind him hard and fast in the river-bed, many of Cronje’s men begged the general to desert the position, and when they saw him so determined they deserted him and escaped to the eastward.

Cronje might have accepted the advice of his officers and men if he had not believed that he could readily make his way to the east, where he did not suspect the presence of any of Lord Roberts’s troops.  Not until the following forenoon, when he saw the British advance-guard marching over the hills on the south side of the river, did he realise that the enemy had surrounded him and that he had erred when he determined to hold the position.  The grave mistake could not be rectified, and Cronje was in no mood for penitence.  He told his men that he expected reinforcements from the east and counselled them to remain cool and fire with discretion until assistance came to them.  Later in the day the enemy attacked the camp from