While the enemy were retreating from the assault of the Lancashires General French's guns opened on them, and with such good result that the fight was practically at an end, for the Boers having begun to beat a retreat were forced finally to scuttle off as fast as legs would carry them. Till sunset the artillery continued to direct deadly attentions to the various kopjes, thus deciding the Dutchmen that their efforts to run and return would be of no avail. Dusk was setting in, and consequently the cavalry failed to pursue them, and they succeeded once more in getting away clear. Owing to the rapidity with which the night came on, most of the troops, who had experienced some very trying hours of fighting, bivouacked where they were. The battery on the right centre was unable to come into action owing to the nature of the ground, which was sliced with ravines and blotched with irregularities, but nevertheless the upshot of the day's work was satisfactory, as the country as far as the little town of Brandfort--important to us in our future operations--was swept clear of the enemy, and henceforth the British outposts covered the ground gained and preserved it from further incursions of the nimble Dutchmen. The casualties were numerous:-- King's Own Scottish Borderers.--_Killed._--Capt. A. C. Going. _Wounded._--Lieut. E. M. Young, dangerously (since dead); Second Lieut. B. J. Coulson; Capt. W. D. Sellar. Norfolk Regiment.--Capt. E. Peebles; Capt. A. H. Luard. Lincolnshire Regiment.--Capt. L. Edwards. South Wales Borderers.--Lieut. W. C. Curgenven. Hampshire Regiment.--Lieut. C. N. French. 1st Dragoon Guards.--Capt. W. M. Marter (Brigade Major). CHAPTER VIII MAFEKING IN MARCH Five months of beleaguerment and no nearer the end! Ruefully the caged crowd began to draw pictures of themselves as weird Rip Van Winkles, curious fossilised things that would some day be unearthed by the inquiring historian. They wondered whether Ginevra in her sealed oaken chest felt more lost to the world, more forgotten, more impossible of rescue! "We," said some one who shall be nameless, "we are all modern Ginevras--only no one seems to look for us, and, by-and-by, perhaps no one will even mourn. It is five months, you see! Ginevra was probably asphyxiated in five hours, whereas we--we do the thing more sluggishly--more painfully--we starve mentally and physically by slow degrees. If we get air, it is air that is best not respired." Nevertheless, these people sent forth to the world radiant accounts of their doings, and sported the mask of Punchinello over the visage of Melpomene. It was very British, this jocose unreserve that was a still more tragic reserve, this festivity on the lips with famine gnawing at the vitals.