The prisoners trooped across the river like some patriarchal or gipsy horde, with trousers turned up so as not to damp them in the swollen drift. They splashed along, each armed with his household effects, pots and pans, blankets and rifles, some jesting and skipping in sheer exuberance of animal spirits that long had been subdued, some stolid and serious in the full comprehension of the grievous end of all their pluck and endurance. And they had endured! From the hundreds of wounded that were brought in the same tale of suspense, and misery, and horror was told in varying keys. Always they had awaited reinforcement; they had even invented a scheme for cutting a way out to meet the relieving force which never came. But volunteers for this deed of daring were few. About a hundred in all. This meagre array was not sufficient. Others had pressed on the relentless Cronje the philosophy of surrender. They urged that directly, if not annihilated by shell fire, they would be laid low by fever; already eighty-seven men were slain and a hundred and sixty wounded. These had no doctors even to attend them. The surgeons had been left behind on the Modder, and the offer of Lord Roberts of medicine and succour had been refused. The suffering had indeed been terrible and now was of no avail. It was not pleasing to the vanity of the British army to find themselves confronted with such a rabble of tatterdemalions, and to remember how this nondescript mob had so long held them in check. But there was no denying that the ruffians had qualities, and that they, unkempt and undisciplined as they were, had proved themselves foemen worthy of our steel and tacticians meriting study. [Illustration: "MAJUBA DAY"--CRONJE SURRENDERS TO LORD ROBERTS AT PAARDEBERG. Drawing by R. Caton Woodville, from a Sketch by Frederic Villiers, War Artist.]