Through war and pestilence, red siege and fire, Silent and self-contained he drew his breath. Too brave for show of courage--his desire Truth as he saw it, even to the death. RUDYARD KIPLING. There is a pretty little cypress grove nestling under the shadow of one of the Ladysmith defences. A peaceful oasis--green where the land is parched and dry. It is God's acre. Before shaking the dust of Ladysmith from off my feet for ever, I turned my pony's head towards the green. The little animal seemed to know the way, and well he should, for the melancholy journey to the cemetery had been frequent during the latter period of the siege. I tied the pony to the rail and passed in under the shadow of the cypresses. The interior of the enclosure was one stretch of new-turned earth. The turf seemed all exhausted. The dainty cemetery of three months ago had now the appearance of a badly harrowed field. In places a rough cross marked the last resting-place of the victims of war and pestilence, a few had the names just scrawled upon a chip of wood; the majority lay unnamed--the price of Empire keeping: a nameless grave! I passed down the clay trodden pathway. The brief legends ran--Egerton, Lafone, Watson, Field, Dalzel, Dick-Cunyngham, Digby Jones, Adams--but why name them? They were all men whom three months ago I had called my friends. Then I found the spot for which I searched--a plain wooden cross inscribed G. W. Steevens, and a date. What an end--six feet of Ladysmith's miserable soil! It was too cruel. My memory carried me back to the brave companion and upright colleague who was gone, and to the manner of his death--the man who had raced with the Cameron Highlanders for Mahmoud's zareba; who had stood with his hands in his pockets when it seemed that it must be but a matter of minutes before Wad Helu swallowed up Macdonald's Soudanese brigade. The man who had scorned death on Elandslaagte's crest lay there a victim to pestilential Ladysmith. If the spare frame had been as stout as the heart which it contained, that miserable rat-hole could not have brought about the end. Poor Steevens--how he strove to live! For a month he lay and fought the battle for life. And then when all seemed well, and we looked for the day that we should have him back again, he quietly faded under a relapse. Doctors could do no more, and at four in the afternoon of the fatal day it was evident that the end was near. Maud, who had nursed him with a devotion unsurpassed, was deputed to break the news. He came to the bedside and suggested that Steevens should dictate a wire to his people at home. The patient looked up suddenly, and in a moment was conscious of the sinister purport of the request. The conversation which ensued was something of the following:-- "Is it the end?" Maud nodded assent. "Will it be soon?" Again Maud nodded assent.