CHAPTER IV

_Week ending 11th November, 1899_


The three weeks were over, and there was nothing to show that our
inspirations in regard to the duration of the siege might yet prove to
be substantially true. No immediate prospect of relief was observable,
and our thoughts mechanically took a gloomy turn. How sanguine we had
been, to be sure. Hardened sinners there were, of course, to sing that
fine old chorus, "I told you so!" They never did! Nobody had ventured to
tell us anything so inexplicit. The three weeks dogma had never been
questioned. It was not, however, the detraction from our repute as
prophets that saddened us, so much as the wearing off of what was novel
in our beleagured state. It was beginning to pall a little. The day was
beautiful, and notable for an absence of dust. In the morning, the
Colonel sent out a patrol to have a look around. He also issued some
stringent regulations, affecting the privileges and liberties of persons
residing outside the town's barriers. These good people were
thenceforward obliged to submit to the indignity of being searched, as a
condition precedent to permission to come or go like ordinary mortals.
The right to read their newspaper across the breakfast cup was also
denied them; the duty had to be performed In town, lest the wind should
blow the local journal into the hands of the enemy and reveal--nothing
at all. The position of the barrier guard ceased to be--if it ever
were--a sinecure, and he was kept busy picking pockets, examining bills,
perusing love-letters, written in all sorts of prose, and in verse which