Inside the laager Cronje, despite the bitter recriminations of the Boers, did his best to put up a stout resistance, while outside our troops crept nearer night by night, until on February 27—the anniversary of Majuba—the Gordon Highlanders, to whom such a task was naturally very acceptable, advanced upon the Boer trenches under a heavy fire, and won a position controlling the inside of the laager. Cronje, realising that further resistance was impracticable, sent in a notice of his surrender to Lord Roberts. The meeting of the Boer commander and the hero of Kandahar must have been one of the most graphic incidents in the war. An eye-witness has narrated: “Presently the body of horsemen came past the hospital tents into the camp. A heavy bundle of a man was lumped atop of a wretched bony little Boer pony. Was this the terrible Cronje? Was it possible that this was the man who had held back the British army at Magersfontein?... Lord Roberts stepped forward, saluted, shook hands, and handed his fallen enemy a chair: ‘You have made a gallant defence, sir; I am glad to meet so brave a foe,’ was his greeting.” Thus within a brief fortnight Roberts had entirely altered the whole aspect of the war. He had inflicted a heavy defeat upon the Boers, relieved Kimberley, and captured Cronje, together with 4000 men. From now onwards his swift advance, his unerring judgment, and the services of his mounted troops not merely gave fresh heart to the Empire, but broke the confidence of the enemy. We must now return to Ladysmith. It was on October 30, 1899, after the humiliating disaster at Nicholson’s Nek—a disaster that can be compared to the surrender of the Duke of York’s troops in Flanders in the eighteenth century, that Sir George White made what preparations he could to defend the town of Ladysmith. On November 2 the last train had left, and the long siege commenced. White had some 10,000 men under his command, and although the Boer commandos numbered a very large force, the defenders managed to give throughout the siege of four months an exceedingly good account of themselves. Ladysmith was a place of considerable military importance, and it would have been a signal disaster if it had fallen into the Boer hands with so large a number of men. At the same time it was a very difficult position to hold, being commanded from every side by kopjes, and lying, as it were, in a saucer. The Gordon Highlanders, who were the only representatives of the Highland Brigade to serve in the siege, were old comrades-in-arms to White. He had led them in the advance upon Kabul and Kandahar. With him was Sir Ian Hamilton, who had been with the 92nd at Majuba.