Again the siege settled down to a monotonous record of decreasing rations and of expectation.  On December 10 there came a sign of hope from the outside world.  Far on the southern horizon a little golden speck shimmered against the blue African sky.  It was Methuen’s balloon gleaming in the sunshine.  Next morning the low grumble of distant cannon was the sweetest of music to the listening citizens.  But days passed without further news, and it was not for more than a week that they learned of the bloody repulse of Magersfontein, and that help was once more indefinitely postponed.  Heliographic communication had been opened with the relieving army, and it is on record that the first message flashed through from the south was a question about the number of a horse.  With inconceivable stupidity this has been cited as an example of military levity and incapacity.  Of course the object of the question was a test as to whether they were really in communication with the garrison.  It must be confessed that the town seems to have contained some very querulous and unreasonable people.

The New Year found the beleaguered city reduced to a quarter of a pound of meat per head, while the health of the inhabitants began to break down under their confinement.  Their interest, however, was keenly aroused by the attempt made in the De Beers workshops to build a gun which might reach their opponents.  This remarkable piece of ordnance, constructed by an American named Labram by the help of tools manufactured for the purpose and of books found in the town, took the shape eventually of a 28 lb. rifled gun, which proved to be a most efficient piece of artillery.  With grim humour, Mr. Rhodes’s compliments had been inscribed upon the shells—­a fair retort in view of the openly expressed threat of the enemy that in case of his capture they would carry him in a cage to Pretoria.

The Boers, though held off for a time by this unexpected piece of ordnance, prepared a terrible answer to it.  On February 7th an enormous gun, throwing a 96 lb. shell, opened from Kamfersdam, which is four miles from the centre of the town.  The shells, following the evil precedent of the Germans in 1870, were fired not at the forts, but into the thickly populated city.  Day and night these huge missiles exploded, shattering the houses and occasionally killing or maiming the occupants.  Some thousands of the women and children were conveyed down the mines, where, in the electric-lighted tunnels, they lay in comfort and safety.  One surprising revenge the Boers had, for by an extraordinary chance one of the few men killed by their gun was the ingenious Labram who had constructed the 28-pounder.  By an even more singular chance, Leon, who was responsible for bringing the big Boer gun, was struck immediately afterwards by a long-range rifle-shot from the garrison.