for about two minutes before it would become visible again at the crown of the other side.  In appearance it was a huge curving ditch with a stagnant stream at the bottom.  The sloping sides of the ditch were fringed with Boers, who had ridden thither before dawn and were now waiting for the unsuspecting column.  There were not more than three hundred of them, and four times their number were approaching; but no odds can represent the difference between the concealed man with the magazine rifle and the man upon the plain.

There were two dangers, however, which the Boers ran, and, skilful as their dispositions were, their luck was equally great, for the risks were enormous.  One was that a force coming the other way (Colvile’s was only a few miles off) would arrive, and that they would be ground between the upper and the lower millstone.  The other was that for once the British scouts might give the alarm and that Broadwood’s mounted men would wheel swiftly to right and left and secure the ends of the long donga.  Should that happen, not a man of them could possibly escape.  But they took their chances like brave men, and fortune was their friend.  The wagons came on without any scouts.  Behind them was U battery, then Q, with Roberts’s Horse abreast of them and the rest of the cavalry behind.

As the wagons, occupied for the most part only by unarmed sick soldiers and black transport drivers, came down into the drift, the Boers quickly but quietly took possession of them, and drove them on up the further slope.  Thus the troops behind saw their wagons dip down, reappear, and continue on their course.  The idea of an ambush could not suggest itself.  Only one thing could avert an absolute catastrophe, and that was the appearance of a hero who would accept certain death in order to warn his comrades.  Such a man rode by the wagons—­though, unhappily, in the stress and rush of the moment there is no certainty as to his name or rank.  We only know that one was found brave enough to fire his revolver in the face of certain death.  The outburst of firing which answered his shot was the sequel which saved the column.  Not often is it given to a man to die so choice a death as that of this nameless soldier.

But the detachment was already so placed that nothing could save it from heavy loss.  The wagons had all passed but nine, and the leading battery of artillery was at the very edge of the donga.  Nothing is so helpless as a limbered-up battery.  In an instant the teams were shot down and the gunners were made prisoners.  A terrific fire burst at the same instant upon Roberts’s Horse, who were abreast of the guns.  ‘Files a bout! gallop!’ yelled Colonel Dawson, and by his exertions and those of Major Pack-Beresford the corps was extricated and reformed some hundreds of yards further off.  But the loss of horses and men was heavy.  Major Pack-Beresford and other officers were shot down, and every unhorsed man remained necessarily as a prisoner under the very muzzles of the riflemen in the donga.