The boy missed the rider but killed the horse, and the British force quickly dismounted and sought shelter in a small ravine.  The reports of volley firing followed, and bullets cut the grass beside the burghers and flattened themselves against the rocks.  Another volley, and a third, in rapid succession, and the burghers pressed more closely to the ground.  An interval of a minute, and they glanced over their tiny stockades to find a British soldier.  “They are coming up the kopje!” shouted a burgher, and their rifles swept the hillside with bullets.  More volleys came from below and, while the leaden tongues sang above and around them, the burghers turned and lay on their backs to refill the magazines of their rifles.  Another interval, and the attack was renewed.  “They are running!” screamed a youth exultingly, and burghers rose and fired at the men in brown at the foot of the kopje.  Marksmen had their opportunity then, and long aim was taken before a shot was fired.  Men knelt on the one knee and rested an elbow on the other, while they held their rifles to their shoulders.  Reports of carbines became less frequent as the troops progressed farther in an opposite direction, but increased again when the cavalrymen returned for a second attack upon the kopje.  “Lend me a handful of cartridges, Jan,” asked one man of his neighbour, as they watched the oncoming force.

“They must want this kopje,” remarked another burgher jocularly, as he filled his pipe with tobacco and lighted it.

The British cannon in the east again became active, and the dust raised by their shells was blown over the heads of the burghers on the kopje.  The reports of the big guns of the Boers reverberated among the hills, while the regular volleys of the British rifles seemed to be beating time to the minor notes and irregular reports of the Boer carbines.  At a distance the troops moving over the brown field of battle resembled huge ants more than human beings; and the use of smokeless powder, causing the panorama to remain perfectly clear and distinct, allowed every movement to be closely followed by the observer.  Cannon poured forth their tons of shells, but there was nothing except the sound of the explosion to denote where the guns were situated.  Rifles cut down lines of men, but there was no smoke to indicate where they were being operated, and unless the burghers or soldiers displayed themselves to their enemy there was nothing to indicate their positions.  Shrapnel bursting in the air, the reports of rifles and heavy guns and the little puffs of dust where shells and bullets struck the ground were the only evidences of the battle’s progress.  The hand-to-hand conflicts, the duels with bayonets and swords and the clouds of smoke were probably heroic and picturesque before the age of rapid-fire guns, modern rifles, and smokeless ammunition, but here the field of battle resembled a country fox-chase with an exaggerated number of hunters, more than a representation of a battle of twenty-five years ago.