until the cessation of fire could be arranged. The Boers, like ourselves, were unable to grasp the situation, and seeing their commandant in our midst, made an attempt to rescue him, which only helped to increase the confusion of the moment. Commandant Eloff called out, "Surrender, surrender," and endeavoured strenuously to pacify his men. We, upon our part, shouted to the town to cease fire; this was at once done, whereupon sixty-seven Boers laid down their arms, handing them to the prisoners, who piled them up within the storehouse. Those of us who were not engaged in this work seized rifles and bandoliers from the heap and manned the defences of the fort until the prisoners could be delivered into proper custody. The Boers were then marched off and were found accommodation in the Masonic Hall and in the gaol. As I retraced my steps to the town and was passing the stables of the British South Africa Police Fort, the groaning of a wounded man caught my ear. I ran to him to find that lying within the shelter of the stables, with a wound through his thigh, was the man to whom I had surrendered myself in the morning. We smiled as he handed over to me his rifle and bandolier. My revolver he had lost, but lying beside him, stiff and dead, with a bullet wound through his forehead, was, by one of those extraordinary coincidences which do happen, the man who had shot my horse. And thus this day of melodrama passed; dramatic in its beginning, dramatic in its conclusion, with enough bloodshed, firing, and animation to satisfy the cravings of the most dispassionate seeker after excitement. Commandant Eloff, Captain von Wiessmann, Captain Bremont, dined at Headquarters. The town came to greet the prisoners, drink was unearthed, and everybody seemed to be congratulating somebody upon their mutual good fortune. We who had been prisoners and were now free rejoiced in the liberty which was restored to us, yet it was difficult to restrain oneself from feeling compassionately upon the great misfortunes which had attended the extraordinary dash and gallantry of the men who were now our prisoners. They had done their best. They proved to us that they were indeed capable and that we should have kept a sharper look-out, while it was indeed deplorable to think that it was the treachery of their own general, in abandoning them to their fate, that had been mainly instrumental in procuring them their present predicament. CHAPTER XXXVI RELIEVED AT LAST WEDNESDAY NIGHT, 7.30 P.M. MAFEKING, _May 16th, 1900_.