the ruined railway in front of him, and gradually creep onwards in face of a formidable and enterprising enemy.  For a long time Gaberones, which is eighty miles north of Mafeking, remained his headquarters, and thence he kept up precarious communications with the besieged garrison.  In the middle of March he advanced as far south as Lobatsi, which is less than fifty miles from Mafeking; but the enemy proved to be too strong, and Plumer had to drop back again with some loss to his original position at Gaberones.  Sticking doggedly to his task, Plumer again came south, and this time made his way as far as Ramathlabama, within a day’s march of Mafeking.  He had with him, however, only three hundred and fifty men, and had he pushed through the effect might have been an addition of hungry men to the garrison.  The relieving force was fiercely attacked, however, by the Boers and driven back on to their camp with a loss of twelve killed, twenty-six wounded, and fourteen missing.  Some of the British were dismounted men, and it says much for Plumer’s conduct of the fight that he was able to extricate these safely from the midst of an aggressive mounted enemy.  Personally he set an admirable example, sending away his own horse, and walking with his rearmost soldiers.  Captain Crewe Robertson and Lieutenant Milligan, the famous Yorkshire cricketer, were killed, and Rolt, Jarvis, Maclaren, and Plumer himself were wounded.  The Rhodesian force withdrew again to near Lobatsi, and collected itself for yet another effort.

In the meantime Mafeking—­abandoned, as it seemed, to its fate—­was still as formidable as a wounded lion.  Far from weakening in its defence it became more aggressive, and so persistent and skilful were its riflemen that the big Boer gun had again and again to be moved further from the town.  Six months of trenches and rifle-pits had turned every inhabitant into a veteran.  Now and then words of praise and encouragement came to them from without.  Once it was a special message from the Queen, once a promise of relief from Lord Roberts.  But the rails which led to England were overgrown with grass, and their brave hearts yearned for the sight of their countrymen and for the sound of their voices.  ’How long, O Lord, how long?’ was the cry which was wrung from them in their solitude.  But the flag was still held high.

April was a trying month for the defence.  They knew that Methuen, who had advanced as far as Fourteen Streams upon the Vaal River, had retired again upon Kimberley.  They knew also that Plumer’s force had been weakened by the repulse at Ramathlabama, and that many of his men were down with fever.  Six weary months had this village withstood the pitiless pelt of rifle bullet and shell.  Help seemed as far away from them as ever.  But if troubles may be allayed by sympathy, then theirs should have lain lightly.  The attention of the whole empire had centred upon them, and even the advance of Roberts’s army became secondary to the fate of this gallant