Boer paean of victory--Rations cut down--Sausage without mystery--The "helio" moves east--Sick and dying at Intombi--Famine prices at market--Laughter quits the camps--A kindly thing by the enemy--Good news at last--Heroes in tatters--The distant tide of battle--Pulse-like throb of rifles--Two sons for the Empire--British infantry on Monte Cristo--Boer ambulances moving north--"'Ave you 'eard the noos?"--Rations increased--Bulwaan strikes his tents--"With a rifle and a red cross"--Buller "going strong"--Cronje's surrender--A sorry celebration--"A beaten army in full retreat"--"Puffing Billy" dismantled--General Buller's message--Relief at hand. Sir Redvers Buller's third attempt to force his way through to Ladysmith failed on 8th February, when he withdrew his forces from Vaalkranz to the south side of the Tugela. Their success was announced by the Boers about Ladysmith in their own way. At half-past two on the morning of 9th February, night was rent by the sudden glare of a search-light from Bulwaan, and soon came the scream of shells hurtling over the town. It was the Boer paean of victory, and it sent the people hurrying to their underground refuges, to which the unco' guid had given the name of "funk-holes," but did no damage. Its purport was half-divined by the defenders. The news was still said to be good, but there were head-shakings, and even the stoutest optimism found itself unequal to the strain when it was announced that rations were to be cut down. If things were going well, "Why, in the name of success," asks Mr. Pearse in his notes for 9th February, "should our universal provider, Colonel Ward, take this occasion to reduce rations? We are now down to 1 lb. of meat, including horse, four ounces of mealie meal, four ounces of bread, with a sausage ration daily 'as far as possible.' Sausages may be mysteries elsewhere, but we know them here to be horse-flesh, highly spiced, and nothing more. Bread is a brown, 'clitty' mixture of mealie meal, starch, and the unknown. Vegetables we have none, except a so-called wild spinach that overgrew every neglected garden, and could be had for the taking until people discovered how precious it was. Tea is doled out at the rate of one-sixth of an ounce to each adult daily, or in lieu thereof, coffee mixed with mealie meal."