The regiment acted as rearguard on the 14th, and did not start till 9 a.m., halting for a short time at mid-day near a blown-up Boer ammunition waggon. Every conceivable sort and kind of small-arm ammunition lay scattered around on the veld, and those who were keen on curios of this description made quite a collection of full and empty cases. The battalion lost eleven more mules, the poor brutes simply falling to the ground from utter exhaustion, being perforce left where they lay. We arrived in camp at 5.30 p.m., and then for the first time, in at all events some of our lives, heard two reveilles in one day, the hated call blaring in our ears at 10.30 p.m. Starting at 12, we pushed on, belts tightened, teeth clenched, and simply determined _not_ to give in. We were told that the cavalry brigades had De Wet at last at the foot of the Magaliesberg, only sixteen miles ahead. So on we went into the sheer and bitter night, more like ghostly shadows than anything else, as the spectral column wound its way through sleeping villages and over mile after mile of dark and silent veld. At last our eyes were gladdened by the sight of twinkling watch-fires on the slopes of some hills just ahead, and as the first signs of dawn began to become manifest, we sank wearily down to enjoy a few minutes' repose. But it was broad daylight when we woke, and alas! for all the hopes of the past eight days, the hills ahead were only occupied by our cavalry. Theirs had been the watch-fires of the dark hours of the night. The game was up, and we were told the first great De Wet hunt was over. Some one had failed to stop the earth; the fox had foiled his pursuers, and the various Generals reluctantly whipped off their hounds. It was a bitter disappointment. We had been so buoyed up by the promises held out to us. Every one had so thoroughly entered into the job, and plodded stolidly along; and all for nothing. Work which, if successful, would have lived in history, but which, being unsuccessful, was fated to be forgotten and ignored; and unsuccessful through no fault of any of the troops engaged in it. There was no General or Staff to blame: no regiment or department which could be hauled over the coals. No; some one had blundered, that was all. The point has never been exactly cleared up, and probably never will be, and there the matter ended. 'Lay not your blame on me: if you have lost him, Why, I have lost him too.'--_Othello._ So we turned over and fell asleep again, and woke up at 9 a.m. and had some breakfast, and were about to fall asleep again when the word came to fall in and march on to some other bivouac. The one we were in was good enough for us, but of course there was nothing for it but to obey, and we marched to a small village called Rietfontein. Here we heard that Colonel Hore's column was surrounded, and in a bad way, some eighty miles off, and that we were to form part of a small force, and make a forced march to his relief.