and lifted his handkerchief in token of surrender.  When the young Irish-American reached him the officer was bleeding profusely, and started to say:  “You were a better man than I,” but he died in Donnelly’s arms before he could utter the last two words of the sentence.  At Magersfontein Donnelly was in a perilous position between the two forces, and realised that he could not escape being captured by the British.  He saw a number of cavalrymen sweeping down upon him, and started to run in an opposite direction.  Before he had proceeded a long distance he stumbled across the corpse of a Red Cross physician which lay partly concealed under tall grass.  In a moment Donnelly had exchanged his own papers and credentials for those in the physician’s pockets, and a minute later the cavalrymen were upon him.  He was sent to Cape Town, and confined in the prison-ship Manila, from which he and two other Boers attempted to escape on New Year’s night.  One of the men managed to reach the water without being observed by the guards, and swam almost three miles to shore, but Donnelly and the other prisoner did not succeed in their project.  Several days later he was released on account of his Red Cross credentials, and was sent to the British front to be delivered to the Boer commander.  He was taken out under a flag of truce by several unarmed British officers, and several armed Boers went to receive him.  While the transfer was being made a British horseman, with an order to the officers to hold the prisoner, dashed up to the group and delivered his message.  The officers attempted to take Donnelly back to camp with them, but he refused to go, and, taking one of the Boer’s rifles, ordered them to return without him—­a command which they obeyed with alacrity in view of the fact that all of them were unarmed, while the Boers had carbines.

When the British column under Colonel Broadwood left the village of Thaba N’Chu on March 30th all the British inhabitants were invited to accompany the force to Bloemfontein, where they might have the protection of a stronger part of the army.  Among those who accepted the invitation were four ladies and four children, ranging in ages from sixteen months to fifteen years.  When the column was attacked by the Boers at Sannaspost the following morning, the ladies and children were sent by the Boers to a culvert in the incomplete railway line which crossed the battlefield, and remained there during almost the entire battle.  They were in perfect safety, so far as being actually in the line of fire was concerned, but bullets and shells swept over and exploded near them, and they were in constant terror of being killed.  The nervous tension was so great and continued for such a long time that one of the children, a twelve-year-old daughter of Mrs. J. Shaw McKinlay, became insane shortly after the battle was ended.