Two or three more stories were told, and then the party broke up, feeling all the better for having for an hour avoided the standing topic. Two days later all were settled at Chieveley again, and it was generally believed that the next attack would take place very shortly, and that it would probably be directed against Colenso. That evening a farmer came into camp. His horse had dropped dead a mile away. He stopped, as he passed through the tents of the scouts, and asked where he could find the general. Captain Brookfield, who heard the question, stepped out from his tent with Chris, to whom he had been talking. "Why, Searle, is it you? I thought the voice was familiar to me. What is it?" "I have ridden in to get help. The other day a raiding party of Boers came down through Inadi, and riding in between Dingley Dell and Botha's Castle--you know the hill--swept off a quantity of cattle. They have not penetrated so far before, and no one about thought that there was any danger while you were attacking them up here. One of the farmers rode to Greytown for help. Most of the young men there had joined one or other of the colonial troops, but fifteen of us said that we could go out. It seemed that there were not more than some fifteen or twenty Boers. Well, I can't tell you all about it, for, as it is a matter of life and death, I have not a moment to lose. However, we came up to them north of Botha's Castle. We had a sharp fight. Two of our men were killed and five of the Boers; the rest rode off. We set to work to bunch all the cattle, and as we were at it we were attacked suddenly by a party sixty or seventy strong. The fellows that we had driven off had evidently come across them and brought them down upon us. We made a running fight, but our horses were not so fresh as theirs; and seeing that they had the speed of us we made for an empty farmhouse, and as they rode up we brought down several of them. "There was a wall round the yard, and the Boers drew off for a bit to consider. Then they dismounted and planted themselves round the house in such shelter as they could find within two or three hundred yards, and the affair began in earnest. The first day they kept up a heavy fire, to which we could make but little reply, for it was certain death to lift a head above the wall or to show one's self at a window even for a moment. We lost three men that way. During the night they tried to carry the place, but we were all at the wall; and had the best of it, as we had only to show our heads, while they were altogether exposed. There was not much firing next day, and it was evident that they meant to starve us out. There was not a scrap of food to be found in the place; but fortunately there was a small thatched kraal inside the yard which gave some forage for the horses. The next day we killed one of them for food.