Royal Hotel or not, the shell came very near to causing several
vacancies in the senior ranks of this force. Passing through the ceiling
and partition wall of a colleague's bedroom, it burst in mine with such
force that it blew out the whole end-wall, hurling bricks across a
narrow court, all about the dining-room windows, which were smashed by
the explosion; but of those sitting close inside only one was slightly
scratched by broken glass. Clouds of dust, mingled with fumes of powder,
poured in through the open casement, so that those in farther corners
were for some moments in much anxiety as to the fate of their friends.
When they found that no harm had been done there was an assumption of
mirth all round, but nobody cared to stay much longer in that room. At
the moment of explosion I had risen from the table to resume work in my
chamber, which presented to my astonished eyes anything but the
characteristics of a quiet study then. Papers scattered in every
direction were buried with clothes and kit under a wreckage of building
materials. One fragment of iron shell had gone clean through a bag and
all its contents to bury itself beneath the floor in earth. Another had
crushed my precious Kodak flat, and there was scarcely a thing exposed
in the place that had not been torn by the blast of powder or cut by
splinters. The diminished population of Ladysmith began to gather about
that spot when they found that no other shells fell there. "What a lucky
escape for you!" they all said, and I devoutly agreed with them.

That was "Long Tom's" last attempt at bombarding Ladysmith to-day. He
had been frequently silenced, and once apparently disabled in his heavy
duel with "Lady Anne," as Captain Lambton names the naval quick-firing
gun, and a final lucky shot either put him out of action for the day or
injured so many Boer gunners that their comrades did not care to "face
the music" again. While all this bombardment was going on, the telegraph
staff and post-office clerks, having no work to do, amused themselves by