Late that evening an order was issued that Lord Dundonald with a squadron of Lancers and some Colonial corps, in which the Maritzburg Scouts were included, were to reconnoitre along the line of railway. All felt sure that no serious opposition was likely to be met with; the defeat of the Boers had been so crushing and complete that assuredly few of the fugitives would be found willing to again encounter the terrible artillery fire, followed by the irresistible onslaught of the infantry. That evening, in spite of the scarcity of wood, bonfires were lighted, and the Scouts gathered round them. Every bottle of spirits and wine that remained in the camp was broached, and a most joyous evening was spent. "I shall be able to breathe freely;" one of the colonists, a man from Johannesburg, said, "on Majuba Day in future. I have made a point for years, whenever I wanted to do any business in Natal, to put it off till that date, so that I could get out of the Transvaal. When I could not manage it, I shut myself up and stopped in bed all day, though even there I used to grind my teeth when I heard the brutes shouting and singing in the streets. Still, to me it was not half such a humiliation as surrender day. The one was a piece of carelessness, a military blunder, no doubt; the other was a national disgrace. And though I saw Majuba myself, it did not affect me half as much as did the abject backing down of the British Government after they had collected an army at Newcastle in readiness to avenge Majuba. We could not believe the news when it came. The fury of the troops was unbounded, and I would not have given a farthing for the lives of any of the men who were the authors of the surrender, had they been in the camp that day." "What were you doing there?" Chris asked.