The new commander-in-chief, Field-Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar, was in his sixty-eighth year, yet, despite his age, he had retained the vigour and energy of youth. Nineteen years before, in 1881, he had gone out to South Africa to avenge Majuba, and had been recalled when Mr. Gladstone changed his mind and decided to make a humiliating compromise with the Boers. Now he was to achieve the work which then Fortune had withheld from him. No soldier was more beloved and venerated by the nation, to which his name had long been a household word. The feeling of admiration and respect for him was strengthened by the thought that he went forth fresh from the bereavement caused by the loss of his only son, the gallant and devoted Lieutenant Roberts, who had laid down his young life in the desperate attempt to save the guns at Colenso. In sacrificing his private sorrow at the public call, the Field-Marshal set a heroic example of resignation under affliction. If he was popular in the best sense with the nation, he was adored by the Army, which knew him for an officer of the most remarkable personal courage, strategic insight, and equability. In the Indian Mutiny he had won that highest distinction our Army can give--the Victoria Cross--by attacking two Sepoys and capturing from them a standard. His serenity of temper and self-restraint were extraordinary. When at Poplar Grove he saw his whole plan for the capture of the Boer army deranged by the hesitation of a subordinate, though other great leaders would have stormed with rage, he uttered not a complaint or a reproach. Closing his field glass, he rode off in silence. As a leader of men, his sympathetic Irish temperament enabled him always to win the enthusiasm of his troops. They would have followed him anywhere. A few words from him at once raised the courage of the shattered and decimated Highland Brigade and restored to it the spirit which had marked it before Magersfontein. A telegram in his magic style cheered Mafeking in its sore distress and raised the spirit of its garrison to elation; his praise supported his noble army through the trials of the weary march to Bloemfontein; a speech from him renewed the flagging energy of thirsty, famished men. His exquisite tact smoothed the ruffled Colonials, who had, in the earlier stages of the war and by other commanders, been studiously disregarded and snubbed. Small in stature as great in mind, he was known among his men by one of those affectionate nicknames which testify to a commander's popularity with his soldiers. Just as Marlborough was christened by his troops "Corporal John," just as Napoleon was to his men "the little Corporal," so Lord Roberts was "Bobs" to his followers. [Illustration: _A. J. Gough._] HOW LORD ROBERTS WON HIS V.C.