the brown, and the third--where? There, bold on the sky-line. Away on
their right, round the hill, stole the black column of the Imperial
Light Horse. The hill was crowned, was turned--but where were the Bo--

A hop, a splutter, a rattle, and then a snarling roll of musketry broke
on the question,--not from the hill, but far on our left front, where
the Dragoon Guards were scouting. On that the thunder of galloping
orderlies and hoarse yells of command--advance!--in line!--waggon
supply!--and with rattle and thunder the batteries tore past, wheeled,
unlimbered as if they broke in halves. Then rattled and thundered the
waggons, men gathered round the guns like the groups round a patient in
an operation. And the first gun barked death. And then after all it was
a false alarm. At the first shell you could see through glasses mounted
men scurrying up the slopes of the big opposite hill; by the third they
were gone. And then, as our guns still thudded--thud came the answer.
Only where? Away, away on the right, from the green kopje over the brown
one where still struggled the reserves of our infantry.

Limbers! From halves the guns were whole again, and wheeled away over
ploughland to the railway. Down went a length of wire-fencing, and gun
after gun leaped ringing over the metals, scoring the soft pasture
beyond. We passed round the leftward edge of the brown hill and joined
our infantry in a broad green valley. The head of it was the second
skyline we had seen; beyond was a dip, a swell of kopje, a deep valley,
and beyond that a small sugar-loaf kopje to the left and a long
hog-backed one on the right--a saw of small ridges above, a harsh face
below, freckled with innumerable boulders. Below the small kopje were
tents and waggons; from the leftward shoulder of the big one flashed
once more the Boer guns.