"I walked that night until I could go no farther, thinking that the Colonial volunteers were in pursuit. If I had known they were English cavalry I should have given myself up, for I was nearly done." As pronounced by him, "Fiyune," his name does not sound familiar to English ears, and it was therefore not until some time afterwards that Major King knew he had been entertained by the notorious Ben Viljoen, who was first reported among the killed at Elandslaagte, then as wounded and a prisoner, but who in fact got away from the fight almost unscathed, and now holds a command in the Boer force outside Ladysmith. Interviews with a senior commandant, who was by no means complaisant, and finally with Schalk-Burger, followed. The latter, after raising many difficulties and dangling prospects of imprisonment in Pretoria before Major King, finally consented to release that officer on condition that he would not take any military advantage of what he had seen or heard in the Boer lines. That condition has been honourably kept, but the Major does not feel himself bound to make any secret of the fact that while the Boers kept him under detention they treated him "devilish well." This way of putting it may seem a little ambiguous, but those who know General Hunter's light-hearted A.D.C. will understand the sincerity of his tribute to the hospitality of Commandants Schalk-Burger and Ben Viljoen. Another Boer, who may be credited with a desire to say pleasant things, was talking under a flag of truce with an English officer about the prospects on each side. "We admit," he said, "that the British soldiers are the best in the world, and your regimental officers the bravest, but--we rely on your generals."