Many hours passed ere the wounded could be relieved. They lay under the
fierce rays of the African sun, suffering agonies from thirst, and no
succour could reach them. At last there were those who ventured to their
help. But the wounded were many, and the helpers were few. The
water-bottles were soon exhausted, but there was one soldier who had a
few drops left. He saw two lads lying side by side in the agonies of
death. He went to the first and offered him the water still remaining in
his bottle. The dying man was parched with thirst, and he looked at the
water with a strange, sad longing, and then feebly shook his head.
'Nay,' he said, 'give it to the other lad. _I_ have the water of life,'
and he turned round to die. _That_ was Christian heroism!

But we will not linger longer over this tragic and pathetic tale.
Suffice it, all was done for the wounded that could possibly be done;
and that Christian ministers committed reverently to the earth 'until
the morning' those who fell so bravely and so suddenly at Magersfontein.

Mr. Robertson shall close the chapter for us, in words as eloquent and
as pathetic as any we have read for many years, and with his sad
_requiem_ we will let the curtain drop on the tragedy of Magersfontein.

[Illustration: REV. JAMES ROBERTSON.

(By permission of the publishers of _St. Andrew_.)]


=The Scottish Dead at Magersfontein.=[5]

'Our dead, our dear Scottish dead! How the corpse-strewn fields of
the Modder, Magersfontein, Koodoosberg, and Paardeberg sorrowfully