Mafeking at last is siege-weary--and, oh, so hungry! It seems months since any one had a meal which satisfied the pangs that gnaw all day. We have been on starvation rations for so many weeks that time has been forgotten, and now there seems the prospect of no immediate help forthcoming! We are so sick of it, so tired of the malaria, diphtheria, and typhoid that claim a list as great almost as that caused by the enemy's shell and rifle fire! We ask, When will the end be? and then we shrug our shoulders and begin to swear; for we have such sorrows in our midst, such suffering women and such ailing children as would turn a saint to blasphemies! [Illustration: Cape Boys Hurling Stones at the Boers as They Endeavoured to Rush the Sap.] CHAPTER XXVI FROM BAD TO WORSE MAFEKING, _February 7th, 1900_. At a moment when the entire garrison, perhaps, excluding the military chiefs, was eagerly anticipating some announcement which would determine the date of an immediate relief, intelligence has come to hand, in a communication from Field-Marshal Lord Roberts himself, informing the inhabitants of Mafeking that he expects them to hold out until the middle of May. Since the beginning of the year the town has lulled itself into a sense of security by endeavouring to believe that at some early date the garrison would be relieved. But now, if it were possible to find "a last straw" to break the spirits of the townsmen, it is contained in the unfortunate telegram which Colonel Baden-Powell received from Lord Roberts. To hold out until the middle of May, it can well be longer, is to ask us to endure further privations, and to maintain an existence in a condition which is already little removed from starvation, and at a moment when the great majority of the civilian combatants, if not of all classes, are "full up" of the siege. For the past month we have been living upon horseflesh, although at first these unfortunate animals were slaughtered only in the interests of the foodless natives, and whatever gastronomic satisfaction may be culled by us now in eating what in more ordinary circumstances has done duty as a horse, it is none the less a hardship and a damned and disagreeable dish.