ladies clung to their caddies and protested; but in vain.  The gallant Colonel insisted—­reluctantly; he had a heart; but he had also, so to say, a partner (Mr. Gorle)—­as inexorable as the “Mr. Jorkins” whom Dickens has immortalised.  This arbitrary conduct on the part of Kekewich and Gorle did not stop at tea and coffee; it was only a beginning, a preliminary step in the military dispensation.  How far the transactions of the firm would extend we were not yet to know; but the details of the massacre at Magersfontein, which kept pouring in, indirectly suggested that the business might extend very far indeed.  The losses sustained at Magersfontein were more appalling than we were at first led to believe.  They were a bitter sequel to the memorable cannonade of ten days before.  How inappropriate had been our jubilation!  The citizens forgot their personal woes in sorrow for the brave men who after a series of brilliant successes had perished in the final effort.  Magersfontein hit us hard, though we knew nothing of the “blazing indiscretions” connected with that fatal assault on positions of peculiar strength and impregnability.  Its consequences meant another delay, perhaps a long one.  Meanwhile our resolution grew stronger to hold Kimberley though the heavens should fall.  Eating, after all, was a habit—­a bad habit with some of us—­which we could not give up in a day.  But the story of Magersfontein diverted our thoughts from provisions.  Let the Boers but come within range of our rifles, and then, ah, then there would be squalls!  But would they do so; would they screw their courage to the sticking point?  It was feared not, more particularly in view of the supposed existence of dynamite mines around Kimberley.  The train was laid; the fuse was there to ignite the powder that would blow up a hostile army.  The mere suggestion of such a contretemps was enough to make the Boers think twice before drawing near enough to be shot at.  Belief in the existence of these mines was widespread.  How far it was warranted, it is hard to say.  The enemy had heard something of them, and burning though was his desire to blow up the diamonds he did not quite court a flight towards heaven in their company.  He had seen what dynamite applied to culverts and bridges could do, and doubtless fully measured the indignity of so disentegrating, not to say violent, a manner of quitting this world for a good one.

On Friday a party of the Lancashire Regiment went out to cut off a Boer water supply at Curtis Farm.  A body of the Light Horse with guns accompanied them—­as a hint to the enemy that intervention would be resented.  The Boer ignored the hint and lost no time in lodging his protest against our infringement of “the game’s” rules.  The “Lanks.,” however, were not to be deterred; they stuck stoically to their work until their object was accomplished.  Our guns had meanwhile kept hurling defiance at the enemy; but there were no casualties on either side.