Soon after midnight the march began. The distance was only two and a half miles, and daybreak was due about 3.25 A.M. But the gruesome night rendered the progress of the troops unusually slow. Rain came down in torrents, thunder growled, lightning played over the hill, glinted on rifles, and disorganised the compasses by which Major Benson was steering his course. Towards dawn the gloom of Erebus seemed to deepen rather than lift, and in the obscurity they must have been quite unaware of the exceedingly close proximity of the enemy, for the Highland Brigade--in the following order, Black Watch, Seaforths, Argyll and Sutherland, and Highland Light Infantry--continued to approach in quarter column though within some two hundred yards of the Boer entrenchments. It was imagined that the Dutchmen were in force on a kopje on the other side of the veldt, and not a soul suspected the existence of the formidable line of intrenchments on which our soldiers were gaily advancing. Before they could discover their mistake they were greeted by the Dutchmen--who had allowed the brigade to approach without showing any signs of life--with a raking fire on their flanks. The whole hill seemed on the instant to become alive with the roar of musketry. Fire vomited as from a live volcano at their very feet. A moment before they had seen only a dark barrier of bush and shrub, and then, flash! the earth yawned, crackled, and emitted the flame of hell. [Illustration: BATTLE OF MAJESFONTEIN] So seemed to them the sudden conflagration in that first, awful moment. They started back--a confused, congested mass, with death in their midst. Their Colonel then ordered the Seaforths to fix bayonets and charge. The officers commanding other battalions followed suit. At this moment, darkness still reigning, some one called "Retire." There was a rush, many hurrying and hustling off to obey one order, while others were still charging forwards to obey the other. The confusion was intense, dead men dropping thick as autumn leaves, bullets whirring, shouts, orders--conflicting orders--ringing out on every side. For some seconds the rout of the gallant Highlanders seemed to be imminent. Their retirement, however, was due mainly to sudden panic, the consternation and amazement at the murderous outburst, blazing as it did in the dim deceitful dusk, from the unsuspected trenches. These, it must be owned, were most skilfully concealed at the foot of a series of kopjes. They were screened from sight by a tangle of brushwood and scrub, while round the glacis of the trenches was crinkled a triple line of barbed wire. When, therefore, a deadly furnace broke from this tangle, the troops were aghast. For the first moment the superb crowd, unduly huddled together and helpless, threatened to become disorganised, but it was only for a moment. The Highlanders retired some 200 yards, and then they instantly formed up, such as were left of them, for out of two companies