"Well, we ourselves didn't know till next morning. The general idea was that it was a Boer scare. They thought that we were crawling up to make a night attack, and so blazed away for all they were worth. We found out afterwards that Philips had conceived the idea that it was possible to destroy that search-light of the Boers. He had learned from prisoners that it was the last they had with them, and although we have not made any night attacks yet, it was possible we might do so in the future, and so he made up his mind to have a try to smash it up. He took with him eight blue-jackets, crawled along in the dark beyond our lines, and got in among the Boers. He had taken particular notice of points he should have to pass, boulders and so on, and he found his way there without making a blunder. There were plenty of Boers round, but no one just at the search-light. The blue-jackets all understood the working of their own search-lights; but the Boers have no electric lights, you know, and work their signals with acetylene, and so they stood on guard while Philips opened the lamp, took out the working parts, whatever they are, and shut the lamp again. Just as they had done so they heard four Boers who had been sitting talking together get up. He and his party dropped among the bushes and lay there quiet while the Boers came up to the lamp. "'We are to keep it going to-night,' one of them said, 'for they may take it into their heads to make an attack, thinking that after having had a truce all day we shall not be expecting trouble, and they may catch us unprepared. I expect our German officer in a few minutes; he said he would be here about ten o'clock, for the rooineks are not likely to move until they think we are asleep.' "They moved away again, and Philips and his men stole quietly off, but before they rejoined our fellows they heard a sudden shot, and in a minute a tremendous rifle fire broke out. Evidently the German had arrived and found the search-light would not act, and they concluded at once that we were marching against them, and for twenty minutes every man in the trenches blazed away at random as fast as he could load. I should say that they must have wasted a hundred thousand cartridges. As there was no reply they began to think that they had been fooled. Our fellows were just as much puzzled at the row, and fell in, thinking that the Boers might possibly be going to attack them. However, matters quieted down, and it was not until the next morning that anyone knew what it had all been about." "That was a plucky thing indeed," Chris said; "though, as I should hardly think we should attack at night, it may not be of much service, for the Boers have long since given up trying with their feeble flash-lights to interrupt our night signalling with Ladysmith, especially as, now the weather is finer, we can talk all day if we like with our heliograph."