be broken by heavy artillery, and fell shot through, with his breast almost against the muzzles of the enemy’s guns.  Nor were the non-commissioned officers and men far behind their valiant leaders; one intrepid sergeant, who was twice wounded, and at some distance from the redoubt, continued the race across the bullet-swept scrub and reached the sandbags almost on the heels of Paton.  The men went forward shouting and cheering, unafraid to look death in the face, afraid only to turn back with their faces from the sandbags where the smoke drifted, and from whence the hail of bullets rained.  There was no coward among their ranks, and even when the gallant souls realised that the position was impregnable, there was not a single man among them who wavered, or dropped back in the race.  From the moment when the order to charge had been given, the attack was an eagerly contested race, with Death sitting on the flaming fort with the crown of glory for their prize.

When an aide-de-camp from the officer commanding the operations galloped up to Baden-Powell with the woeful intelligence that Captain Vernon had been repulsed, the Goal-Keeper hesitated, and the bystanders saw that he was taking counsel with himself as to whether a second attack should be made upon Game Tree fort.  But his decision was soon reached, and in a quiet voice he said, “Let the ambulance go out.”  And that was the way in which Baden-Powell took the defeat of his great plan for breaking the tightening cordon round Mafeking.

In history are recorded sieges of a more thrilling character than that of Mafeking, but if you consider the story of this little town’s defence you will find, I believe, that in few other cases have difficulties of so oppressive a character been borne with greater fortitude and courage.  In a large town a siege is not so wearing to the nerves as it is in a little village the size of Mafeking; and in the case of this miniature garrison the troublesomeness has been doubled by the small number of men to share the burden of days and nights spent in the trenches, now blistered by the sun’s rays, now drenched to the skin with rain that converted the ditches into small rivers.  It is not our purpose to magnify Baden-Powell’s defence, but it is necessary to caution you against the natural course of following his example and treating the Boer bombardment as a joke.  It was no joke; and, if it had been, even the best of jokes pall when repeated through days and weeks and weary months.  But the garrison would never let anybody dream that they were doing heroic things, never send imploring messages for help to men already occupied with the enemy in other parts of South Africa.  To the question, “How long can you hold out?” Baden-Powell had only one answer, “As long as the food lasts.”