love and your God's--and both are yours, yearning for a return.

'Oh, here's a sad group--seven, eight, nine, close together. Who's
that in front? An officer. I thought as much. _Noblesse oblige_.
Yes, I know him. Are we to bring him with the others? did you ask.
Certainly. What more appropriate resting-place than with the men he
so nobly led, and who so gallantly followed him--all alike faithful
to the death, giving their life for Queen and country! Pass on.
Here are three, one close after the other, as they moved from the
cover of this small donga. I saw them fall, vieing with one another
for a foremost place, for here "honour travelled in a strait so
narrow that only one could go abreast." All three mere boys, but
with the hearts of heroes. A book, did you say, in every one of
their pockets? _Prayers for Soldiers_--well marked, too. My friend
was right, dear mothers. There _is_ some comfort in the sadness--a
gleam of sunshine showing through the gloom.

'Ah, how thick they lie! What a deadly hail of Mausers must have
come from that rock-ribbed clump on the kopje. Three--and--twenty
officers and men, promiscuously blent; and fully more on that
little rise over there, as they showed in sight. God help their
wives and mothers, and strengthen me for this sacred duty! Nay,
men, don't turn away to hide the rising sob and tear. I'm past
that. I've got a new ordination in blood and tears. It's nothing to
be ashamed of--so far the opposite, it does you honour, for "men of
finest steel are men who keenest feel." Look at this man with the
field-dressing in his hand, shot while necessarily exposing
himself, trying to do what he could for a wounded comrade. Noble,
self-sacrificing fellow! Such deeds illumine the dark page of war.
Of a truth, some noble qualities grow under war's red rain.