Just as the fire was slackening, possibly from sheer fatigue on both sides, the heavily charged thunder-clouds burst over the position, and a terrific downpour of hail and rain scourged the contesting forces and flooded the trenches. The Boers at this time had been driven to a corner like wolves at bay, and could not emerge without running the gantlet of a tremendous fire from the Ladysmith guns. Wet to the skin, the ground one vast meadow of slush, the combatants still held on with grim tenacity, each side watching lynx-eyed, each being now almost mad with an insatiable and ferocious desire for victory. The storm continued and grew. Instead, as imagined, of relinquishing the fight, the Boers took courage from the tempest. The tornado from heaven only served to increase the tornado below! It seemed to suit the stormy state of human passions, to stimulate rather than subdue. Under cover of the thunder and the swirl of the elements the Federals made one desperate onward rush, but the furious fire which met them from Volunteers and British Infantry hurled them back and sent them spinning in heaps or rushing with howls down the hill. The 53rd Battery swept the bush country with a storm of shrapnel, and away to cover they went, and with them their reinforcements, who had been hiding in the neighbouring nullahs, waiting for the great, the final hour of triumph. So much for Caesar's Camp. On Wagon Hill before noon the Devons, with their gallant commander, had come to the forefront, Colonel Park again leading them to renewed success. As we know, the Boers were already on the hill, and the Gordons, who had lost their officers, were falling back when Major Milner Wallnutt rallied them. The enemy were soon removed from the emplacement which they held; but they rushed towards the west, and were there as dangerously fixed as ever. About two o'clock the most horrible moment of the fight arrived. The hill that had been the subject of such eager contest was again attacked, this time by a small but desperate body of Dutchmen. De Villiers, their Commandant, made a wild forward rush to secure the position. In an instant Major Wallnutt and a sapper were shot dead, but the rest of the sappers magnificently fronted the invaders with fixed bayonets. Presently the brilliant youth, the hero of the Surprise Hill affair, Lieutenant Digby Jones, R.E., led them forward, shot De Villiers, and dropped! A bullet had sent him home to his last account. The hoary-headed Burghers were stayed in their onward march by the splendid action of the noble boy, who so many times had risked his young life in the service of his country. At this juncture up came a dismounted squadron of the 18th Hussars, and the situation was saved. The plateau was reoccupied. [Illustration: PLAN OF LADYSMITH AND CHRONICLE OF EVENTS. (From Drawing by W. T. Maud.)]