At length the course was taken that might have saved much trouble if put into practice days earlier, by making peremptory the order that all non-residents who could not show the necessary permit to remain should clear out within twenty-four hours, or be subject to arrest and imprisonment. At the same time a warning went round that none would, after the allotted time, be allowed to pass our outposts coming or going, and so perforce many who would have been glad to get away remained, having missed their last chance of going southwards by train. What has become of them since then I do not know, unless they have taken refuge with non-combatants, and sick and wounded, in the neutral camp. At any rate, they are not here now, and that is something to be thankful for, though they could give little information to the enemy, except that shelling has done surprisingly little harm, and killed or wounded very few in proportion to the enormous number of projectiles thrown. This in spite of good guns, aimed with most accurate skill, is attributable solely to the fact that the shells were too weakly charged to burst with much destructive effect. But the spies--for they were certainly nothing less--had done their work in locating every point of military importance or personal interest in Ladysmith, and it is hardly possible to doubt that this knowledge was imparted to Boer gunners, who promptly began training their heaviest artillery in the direction of supply depots, ordnance stores, headquarters, intelligence offices, and other places not visible from the enemy's positions, though within easy range of, and therefore commanded by them, if the gunners knew exactly where to aim so that projectiles might drop over intervening houses and trees. When the most destructive shell burst in my bedroom most people regarded it as an accidentally erratic shot, intended for some other mark. Those who suggested that time and place had been deliberately chosen because Colonel Frank Rhodes, Doctor Jameson, Sir John Willoughby, General French with his staff, and other officers, were known to have lunched in the Royal Hotel on several previous days, met with nothing but ridicule. Colonel Rhodes especially made light of the idea that any gun could shoot so accurately as to get within a few feet of hitting the exact mark aimed at from a range of nearly five miles. Since then, however, the hotel has been nearly struck several times, and on each occasion about the same hour, so that the most sceptical are now changing their opinions in favour of a belief that the Royal Hotel has been marked for destruction. Out of consideration for other guests, therefore, Colonel Rhodes, "the Doctor," Sir John Willoughby, and Lord Ava have taken up their quarters elsewhere.