I4O TALES OF A NOMAD. 



beer, and spirituous liquor. We felt that the enemy 

 must first pass over our corpses before they could en- 

 danger the safety of these soothing stores, and that to 

 us in particular was entrusted the double honour of 

 defending and consuming them. 



Alas, they came to an end before the siege did. 



From time to time we heard rumours that the Boers 

 had concentrated, that they were winding up their 

 martial ardour by indulgence in pious exercises, that 

 they were going to invade us, etc. But we heard the 

 last so often that we began to doubt whether they would 

 ever really come to the scratch. 



However, we received definite information that they 

 were encamped in laager about seven miles off, on a 

 road which led straight from the fort to their camp. 



Major Brooke (I suppose), feeling it his duty to keep 

 in touch with them, and thus prevent them from detach- 

 ing men to operate against our forces elsewhere, deter- 

 mined to bring on hostilities. 



Accordingly, one day, about a couple of hours before 

 sunrise, the Hottentot police under Thompson and 

 Bates went out to engage them and draw them on. 



We, the volunteers, made a detour and occupied a little 

 hill about half a mile on the right of the road by which 

 the police went out towards the Boer laager. The idea 

 was that if the police were defeated and driven back 

 along the road, we were to issue from the little hill and, 

 galloping to the road, form a support upon which they 

 could rally. 



The Boers are naturally suspicious of anything which 

 looks like an ambuscade or flank movement, and this 

 arrangement would be pretty certain to check their 

 pursuit. We reached the little hill before daybreak. At 



