_As Methuen had made but slow progress in killing Boers in honorable fight on the battlefield, he now gave way to his savage inclination and had some twenty or thirty wounded Boers whom he found in a farmhouse near the battlefield, deliberately shot in cold blood._ Of course Methuen had seen his men fall by the hundred, and no doubt he was highly enraged at the sight, but it requires a brute to deliberately take the lives of helpless, wounded men, and, in my experience with the brute creation, which is considerable, I am sure that there are exceedingly few brutes that would do such a thing. Even the sneaking hyena would refrain unless he were dying of hunger. Now Lord Methuen had learned that Cronje was on deck, and in the best of health, so he called for all the re-enforcements at hand and brought up his decimated force to something like 15,000 men and six batteries. Cronje was lucky too, and increased his force to something more than 4,000, but not much more. Methuen's were all trained and tried men, and, as the English would put it, invincible; Cronje had his ordinary farmers who knew nothing whatever about military training. No doubt Methuen did lots of thinking, but I do not believe he called any council of war, because he is too conceited and arrogant to do such a thing. He who deigns to make a suggestion to a lord is very liable to be sent away and told to attend to his own business. Although he is supremely arrogant, I think he did some shaking in his boots because he knew that Cronje was in front. For several days after his terrible smashup on Modder River, Methuen spent his time in recuperating and awaiting re-enforcements. Cronje and de la Rey spent their time in preparing for a fight at Magersfontein. In front of the ridge on which they concealed their small guns and maxims they put the Boers to work digging a trench. The trench being finished, it was so well concealed that the English could not see it. They knew that this scheme would work, because Methuen would not think of sending out any reconnoitring parties to find out just how the Boers were to make their fight. He would tell you that it was unnecessary because he had a balloon, and from that balloon he could see the Boers far behind their actual, but unknown to him position. The Boers were not in the trenches by day, but were far behind them. At night you could find everyone of them there, and in perfect readiness for battle. CHAPTER X. MAGERSFONTEIN AND PAARDEBERG.