Friday came, and with it came two English prisoners who had made good their escape from the Boers.  Their story was interesting.  They carried Martini-Henry rifles, but (as they explained) given a choice in the selection, would have chosen Mausers.  Their friends, the enemy, had presented them with the weapons—­conditionally; all they had asked in return was that the recipients should join the Republican ranks.  The Englishmen scratched their heads, hesitated about striking a bargain, and were promptly commandeered.  They determined, however, to get the best of the bargain at last; they escaped; and here they were in our midst, easing their consciences with expressions of their intention to restore the rifles to their rightful owners when the war was over, and as much of the ammunition as possible, on the instalment plan, while it lasted.

They had heard pitiful tales of the straits to which we had been reduced.  Imaginative natives had assured them that there was “no more Kimberley”; the “fall” of Mafeking, forsooth, had staggered us so much that we did not want to fight.  We were in our last gasps for a drop of water.  Terrible guns were being wheeled to the diamond fields, to scatter it to the four winds of heaven.  The diamonds were first to be blown out of the mines, and with them the local “imaginative” shareholders; while the Verkleur was to be unfurled Over the City Hall.  All the perishable property was to be confiscated, and consumed as a sort of foretaste of what was due to the proud invaders’ valour.  Such was the romance dinned into the ears of our visitors.  Happily, they made allowances for Bantu palsy, and did not hesitate to ignore it.

Saturday proved altogether uneventful, and prolific in nothing but outrageous lies.  One item of news, however, was but too true:  the good folk of Windsorton had surrendered to the Boers.  Intelligence of a more agreeable nature followed soon after.  Cronje’s repulse at Mafeking, and the British victory at Glencoe, made us hopeful at the end of a week, the beginning of which had looked so ominous; and nearly all things were to our satisfaction on Saturday night when the third part of our “time” had formally expired.

CHAPTER II

Week ending 28th October, 1899

After a hard and anxious week, Sunday was indeed a day of rest.  We enjoyed it because we felt instinctively that an enemy who sincerely believed that Providence was necessarily on his side, would leave us unmolested on the Sabbath.  We were therefore justified in feeling a sense of immunity from stray shells and bullets.  We enjoyed the day, too, because it gave us time and opportunity to look about us; to make a general inspection; and to pronounce the arrangements for the city’s defence satisfactory.  The volunteer forces had assumed gratifying proportions, and their eyes were all “right.”  Walls and buildings on the outskirts of the town, which