The flag itself, it may be added, was found by a search party some distance down the river. It was brought back to England at the close of the war and presented to her Majesty the Queen, who tenderly placed upon it a wreath of immortelles in remembrance of the gallant pair whose lives had been given for it. At about the same time an announcement appeared in the _London Gazette_ to the effect that had Melvill and Coghill lived they would have received the V.C. And so their names, too, are added to the glorious roll of honour. * * * * * On the same day that Merrill and Coghill won fame, Samuel Wassall, a private of the 80th Regiment who had been serving with the Mounted Infantry, earned the third Cross that is associated with Isandhlana. Having escaped from the Zulus, he too turned his horse towards the Buffalo River. He was pursued, but managed to outdistance his enemies, and gained the river unharmed at a point farther east than the ford. Just as he was about to enter the water Wassall saw another soldier--Private Westwood--battling vainly with the current and evidently on the point of being drowned. To jump from his horse was the work of a moment. Then, throwing himself into the stream, he swam to the sinking man’s rescue, brought him out, got himself and the exhausted Westwood on to the horse, and plunged once more into the river. Some Zulus had appeared on the rocks above him as he was in the act of mounting, and their bullets came perilously close, but neither he nor his burden was hit. The horse needed no urging to get across the stream, and ere long Wassall was out of reach of his discomfited pursuers. The Staffordshire private takes an honoured place among the wearers of the Cross for Valour, for his courage in turning to the rescue of his drowning comrade stamps him a true hero. CHAPTER XXI. ZULULAND.--HOW THEY HELD THE POST AT RORKE’S DRIFT. The story of Rorke’s Drift is the story of one of the most heroic defences in our military annals. At this small post on the Buffalo River one hundred and thirty-nine men of the 24th (South Wales Borderers) Regiment, Durnford’s Horse, and the Natal Mounted Police, kept off a huge army of three thousand Zulus all through the afternoon and night following the disaster at Isandhlana. Modern history, I believe, contains no parallel to this brilliant feat of arms, which stands for all time as an example of the splendid courage and devotion of which Englishmen are capable when duty calls. * * * * *