Then the sack tumbled off. I sprang down, hooked the bridle to a tree,
rushed back for the bag, and started forward again. The firing now
became so severe that I raced for a clump of trees, hoping to find
temporary shelter there. Some of our men were here, lying behind the
slender tree-trunks and taking a shot at the enemy now and then.

"Absolutely impossible to live in the open," they said. "Better wait
awhile and see how things go."

I laid myself down under the trees and listened to the bullets as they
sang through the branches.

The very heavens vibrated as the roar of artillery grew ever fiercer,
and the loud echoes rolled along from hill to hill and died away in an
awful whisper that shook the grass-tops like an autumn wind.

What were those lines of Bret Harte's about the humming of the battle
bees?... I could not remember.

My eyelids grew heavy and presently I was fast asleep.

"Wake up! They're coming round to cut us off. We must clear!" And away
went my friend.

Knowing their horses would soon out-distance my heavily laden pony, and
trusting to get away unobserved, I took his bridle and led him away. For
about twenty yards all went well. Then suddenly there broke loose over
us the thickest storm of lead I ever wish to experience. Whether it was
a Maxim or not I could not say, but it seemed to me as if the whole