across the centre, and threw them at the men. The Horse Artillery moved
into position, some going at a steady trot, others sweeping along the
valleys as if they were the children of the storm. The left flank swung
forward and encircled the base of an imposing kopje. The men swarmed up
with tiger-like activity, quickly, and in broken and irregular lines; but
there was no confusion, no wretched tangle, no helpless muddle. They did
not rush madly to the top and stand on the sky-line to be a mark for their
foes. When they almost touched the summit they paused, formed their broken
lines, and carefully and wisely topped the black brow; and as they did so
the Boer rifles spoke from a line of kopjes that lay behind the first. Then
our fellows dropped to cover, and sent an answer back that a duller foe
than the Boers would not have failed to understand. The Mauser bullets
splashed on the rocks, and spat little fragments of lead in all directions;
but few of them found a resting-place under those thin yellow jackets.
By-and-by the shells began to follow the Mauser's spiteful pellets, but the
shells were less harmful even than the little hostile messengers; for,
though well directed, the shells never burst--they simply shrieked, yelled,
and buried themselves. Our gunners got the ground they wanted, and soon gun
spoke to gun in their deep-throated tones of defiance. The Boers were not
hurting us; whether we were injuring them we could not tell.

In the meantime our whole transport came safely inside a little
semi-circular valley, and arranged itself with almost ludicrous precision.
The nigger drivers chaffed one another as the shells made melody above
their heads, and made the air fairly dance with the picturesque terms of
endearment they bestowed upon their mules, between the welts they bestowed
with their long two-handed whips. When two of their leaders jibbed and
refused to budge, they howled and called them Mr. Steyn and Ole Oom Paul;
but when they got down solid to their work they laughed until even their
back teeth were showing beyond the dusky horizon of their lips, and endowed