him to take our answer back to camp.  He then ordered us to start at once for the drift.  I asked him, as it was then getting dark, if we could start early next morning, but he refused.  So we started, he having said we should cross at Spencer’s, being closest.  As we left the farmhouse, I pointed out to him that we were going in the wrong direction; but he said, ‘Never mind; come on across a drift close at hand.’  When we got opposite it, he kept straight on; I called to him, and said that this was where we were to cross.  His reply was, ‘Come on!’ I then said to Captain Elliott, ‘They intend taking us back to Pretoria,’ distant some forty miles.  Suddenly the escort (which had all at once increased from two to eight men, which Captain Elliott pointed out to me; and I replied, ’I suppose they are determined we shall not escape, which they need not be afraid of, as we are too keen to get over the border’) wheeled sharp down to the river, stopped, and, pointing to the banks, said, ‘There is the drift—­cross!’ I drove my horses into the river, when they immediately fell; lifted them, and drove on about five or six yards, when we fell into a hole.  Got them out with difficulty, and advanced another yard, when we got stuck against a rock.  The current was now so strong and drift deep, my cart was turned over on to its side, and water rushed over the seat.  I called out to the commandant on the bank that we were stuck and to send assistance, or might we return, to which he replied, ’If you do, we will shoot you.’  I then tried, but failed, to get the horses to move.  Turning to Captain Elliott, who was sitting beside me, I said, ‘We must swim for it’; and asked could he swim, to which he replied, ‘Yes.’  I said, ’If you can’t, I will stick to you, for I can.’  While we were holding this conversation, a volley from the bank, ten or fifteen yards off, was fired into us, the bullets passing through the tent of my cart, one of which must have mortally wounded poor Elliott, who only uttered the single word ‘Oh!’ and fell headlong into the river from the carriage.  I immediately sprang in after him, but was swept down the river under the current some yards.  On gaining the surface of the water, I could see nothing of Elliott, but I called out his name twice, but received no reply.  Immediately another volley was fired at me, making the water hiss around where the bullets struck.  I now struck out for the opposite bank, which I reached with difficulty in about ten minutes; but as it was deep, black mud, on landing I stuck fast, but eventually reached the top of the bank, and ran for about two hundred yards under a heavy fire the whole while.