“I will not tell, but don’t do it again!” Seven weary weeks have passed, and Mafeking still endures the straits of a siege and the terrors of a bombardment. The Boers have summoned to their aid the finest guns from their arsenal in Pretoria to breach and pound the earthworks; they pour shot and shell into the little town: but everybody is living below ground now. But they have bethought them of a new engine of terror and death. All was dark outside, the good folk in Mafeking were going to bed in peace, when a deafening roar shook the town to its foundation of rock; a lurid glow of blood-red fire lit up square and street and veldt, while pattering down on roofs of corrugated iron dropped a hailstorm of sand and stones, and twigs broken from many trees. The frightened folk ran out to see what had happened, and they saw a huge column of fire and smoke rising from the ground to the north of Mafeking. After the great roar of explosion came a weird silence and then the rattle of falling fragments on roof after roof; and then the cry of terror, the shriek of those who had been aroused from sleep to face the great trumpet-call of the Day of Judgment: for this they imagined that awful phenomenon to portend. It was not until the morning that they knew what had caused the alarm. About half a mile up the line the ground was rent and torn; the rails were bent and scattered and flung about as by an earthquake. On inquiry, they found that the Boers had filled a trolley with dynamite, and were to impel it forwards towards Mafeking. They lit the time-fuse, and proceeded to push the trolley up a slight incline. A few yards further, and it would reach the down incline, and would run merrily into town without need of further aid from muscle of man. But they gave over pushing a little too soon; the trolley began to run back, and it was so dark they did not realize it until it had gathered way; then they called to one another, and some pushed, but others remembered the time-fuse, and stood aloof with their mouths open. Very soon the time-fuse met the charge, and the dynamite hastened to work all the evil it could, regardless of friend or foe.