Meanwhile proceedings pregnant with meaning were taking place at Alexandersfontein. The evacuation of the position was going on apace, and was being watched with bated breath by the Beaconsfield Town Guard. The numbers of the enemy ensconced at Alexandersfontein had diminished so materially that Major Rodger with a picked force of one hundred men ventured to try conclusions with the residue. A sharp, decisive fight ensued; the few Boers left to defend the place were so startled that they soon fled, leaving bag and baggage behind them. A few on the Boer side were killed (or wounded) and half a dozen were taken prisoners. Of the Major's men, two were injured. Despatches found in the pocket of a prisoner went to show that Alexandersfontein had been used partially as a women's laager; and I regret to have to record that a woman and a young child were severely wounded in the battle. But it was the sequel to this remarkable fight that roused the people from their torpor. Large quantities of provisions were found not only in the camp but in the hotel and houses of the neighbourhood. The news spread like wildfire, and a great paean of triumph went up from a thousand throats. From the various redoubts the citizen soldiers, regardless of risk, hastened in carts to the scene of confiscation. The early birds got butter! there was no doubting it, for however impaired may have been our sense of taste, our dilated eyes were right. Some folk carried away large sacks of meal and flour--satisfied to enjoy _carte blanche_ in bread without butter. Others, again, bore off bags of potatoes in contented triumph; while not a few went home with onions in their pockets and a tear and a smile in their eyes. And when later in the day a drove of half a hundred oxen, horses, and mules, with their forage behind them, entered Kimberley they were greeted with a tumult of applause never meted out to royal pageant or conquering biped coming! A little whiskey, it was said, had been unearthed; but there was no evidence, circumstantial or oscillatory, to confirm this. Minor windfalls in the way of half-sovereigns, five pound notes, Kruger coins, and trousers buttons had also been picked up and appropriated as a matter of course.