At this time it seemed as though the word "As you were" had been spoken by the military authorities. But it was, alas! no longer possible to believe that the position was as it had been; for it was now a case of melancholy experience plus previous melancholy experience. Nearly six weeks before, the great frontal attack at Colenso had failed--failed partly by reason of the tremendous strategical position taken up by the Boers, with the river Tugela as a natural moat for its protection, and partly on account of the disaster to the guns, which completely upturned the plan of Sir Redvers Buller's calculations. Now a great flank movement had been attempted, and had failed as signally as the first frontal effort. It was really discovered that a flanking movement, truly interpreted, was impossible, for there is no flank to a circle, and the Boer lines were found to be equally strong all round from Colenso to Ladysmith. This horrible discovery naturally made the situation very grave indeed. The effect on the garrison of Ladysmith--the terrible rebound from delighted anticipation to amazed despair--may be partly imagined. None, indeed, save those who had so valiantly endured the terrible changes in the barometer of expectation could entirely gauge the sensitivity of those ill-fed, debilitated thousands, ravaged by disease, privation, and warfare, who hung oscillating day after day between salvation and destruction. They now knew that their saviours, Sir Charles Warren and his force, were withdrawn to the south of the Tugela. This was done because the river forms a species of natural rampart, beyond which the country--a species of South African Switzerland--offered no facilities to an attacking force. It was found that the Boers had carefully fortified every position already well formed by nature for purposes of defence. It was the same as Colenso. The theatre of war was margined by fortifications, regular galleries, rising tier upon tier on originally favourable positions. The opportunity to occupy these favourable positions the Boers owed entirely to us--to the procrastination and pacific tendencies of the British Government. It was now owned that Sir Alfred Milner should have gone to the Conference with a forest of rifles at his back, an army of mounted Colonials at his elbows, and some big guns "up his sleeve." As it was, while he talked and the Government spent its money on telegraphic palaver, the Boers, assisted by their German mercenaries, were marking out the choicest positions, not for their own defence, but for the defence of Natal (which they were allowed time to seize) against the "magnanimous" Briton. Yes, the Boers from the beginning had decided to talk the British into delay, and had profited gloriously by their strategy. In our first volume, a letter on "Boer ignorance" candidly showed the Dutchman's hand--too late, of course, for then the trick was bound to be taken. The Dutchmen conferred with Sir