"Gloom, gloom, gloom, unending gloom!" So said one on the 26th of February, one who was fast sinking in the slough of despondency into which so many had slipped lower and lower, till they were sucked down and ended their troubles with fever and the grave. Some few days before all hearts had leapt with joy at reading of hopeful signals, listening to booming guns, which all thought to be bursting the gates of their imprisonment. So certain were they that the joyful hour of freedom was at hand that the force was placed on full rations. "We can afford to have a blow-out now," some one had said, and began to arrange what menu he should chose when he at last came face to face with civilisation. Then had come gloom--gloom blacker than Erebus--for it was gloom without and within. The guns--the welcome guns--not the obstreperous ones of Bulwana and the companion hills--had ceased their clamour. Hope was gone, and even the "helio" refused its communications. The sky was overcast, and rumours, that had always been prolific as flies, now began to breed apace. The air of Ladysmith was thick with them. No word from Buller's column. Kaffirs hinted that for the fourth time the relief column had retired at the back of the Tugela. Doubt, anxiety, suspense set in with renewed terrors. Quarter rations--the more trying because temporarily dropped--again became the order of the course. This in spite of the fact that Buller had now signalled "Everything progressing favourably." It seemed that they had heard that message before, those poor, half-hopeful, half-sceptical sufferers.