The third V.C. of the campaign was won by Captain R. C. Nesbitt, during the fighting in Mashonaland. A party of miners in the Mazoe Valley having been attacked by the natives, a patrol rode to their relief from Salisbury, but was unable to bring them away. On the 19th of June Captain Nesbitt was out with a patrol of thirteen men when he met a runner from the leader of the refugees, with a note which stated that they were in laager and urgently in need of help. A relief force of a hundred men and a Maxim gun was asked for. The captain read the message out to his men and proposed that they should try and rescue the party, to which the troopers readily agreed. Sending the runner on to Salisbury, the patrol at once turned their horses in the direction of the Mazoe Valley, and fought their way through the cordon of Mashonas to the laager. Then, with the three women of the party in an armoured waggon, they started on the return journey, and after some desperate fighting brought them all safely in to Salisbury, with a loss of only three men. Of such sons as these, Henderson, Baxter, Crewe, and Captain Nesbitt, Rhodesia is deservedly proud. And we “who sit at home at ease” while these outposts of Empire are being won for us, may well be proud too, remembering that they are of our own blood, Britons in that Greater Britain across the seas. CHAPTER XXIV. IN EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN. Arabi Pasha’s rebellion in Egypt in 1882, which was quelled by the British army under Sir Garnet (afterwards Lord) Wolseley, was notable chiefly for the bombardment of Alexandria and the battle of Tel-el-Kebir. At Alexandria, as has been noted in a previous chapter, Gunner Israel Harding won the Cross for picking up a live shell and immersing it in water. At Tel-el-Kebir and at Kafrdour the two other V.C.’s of the campaign were earned in no less gallant style. The Kafrdour hero was Private Frederick Corbett, of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. During the reconnaissance upon this village the leader of his company, Lieutenant Howard-Vyse, was mortally wounded, and Corbett obtained leave to remain by the officer’s side while the others went on. The Egyptians were keeping up a pretty vigorous fire the while, but the plucky private calmly sat down and bound up the lieutenant’s wounds as best he could, afterwards carrying him off the field. Lieutenant W. M. M. Edwards’ exploit at Tel-el-Kebir, where he captured a battery almost single-handed, is worthy of being related at some length. It was, perhaps, the most dashing thing done in the war. At this hard-fought battle four miles of earthworks which the Egyptians had thrown up in front of their position had to be carried at point of bayonet. To the Highland Light Infantry and the Royal Irish Fusiliers was given the post of honour, and as the word of command rang out both regiments dashed forward at the charge.