We returned to the column, which was marching wonderfully slowly, and informed Scheepers, who was pleased to find his men so punctual. As we rode along he asked me a few particulars about the vibrator, wire tapping, and so on. I told him how at Spion Kop the wire failed at the very moment it was needed most. "Yes," he remarked thoughtfully, "trifles often make all the difference. I had an experience of that myself one night not so long ago. We had laid a nice little trap near Kroonstad, put a charge of dynamite on the rails, placed the men in position, and waited for a train to come along. After a few hours of suspense the latter appeared, and just as it was going over the charge I pressed the button. What do you think happened?" "The unexpected, I suppose?" "Precisely. To our disgust the dynamite did not do the rest, and the train puffed tranquilly past. One of my battery wires had become disconnected in the dark, and through that one little detail the whole thing was spoilt." "At least from your point of view," I said jestingly. "But think what a narrow escape you had yourselves. The train might have stopped, a searchlight might have thrown its piercing gleam over your waiting band, and a volley from a battery of maxims might have strewn the shuddering veld with your palpitating bodies!" "Oh, no danger of that!" replied Scheepers lightly; "we knew there were no _Graphic_ artists on board!" Towards sunset the head of the column halted, nine miles from Heilbron, having done only twenty miles during the whole day's march. I say the head of the column, because the body of it was still straggling somewhere along the road, to say nothing of the tail. We went to bed hungry, the men with the waggon being too lazy to make a fire. I consoled myself with the prospect of a good breakfast in Heilbron the next morning, and slept as well as the cold would let me. ROODEWAL We were awakened the next morning while it was still dark. I roamed about in the gloom searching for my errant Rosinante. After describing half a dozen circles I returned to the waggon, to find the missing steed no longer astray, but peacefully grazing away about six feet from the aforesaid vehicle. It was a demon of a horse, no doubt about that. We upsaddled and stood shivering in the cold, our ears and noses fast becoming frostbitten, and waited for the body of the column to catch up to us, for it now appeared that everyone had gone to sleep where he pleased the night before. De Wet was in a furious rage. "I told them we were to be in Heilbron at sunrise!" he shouted. "I wish the British would catch and castrate every one of them, so that they may be old women in reality."