Thousands were already pouring into the streets to greet the British cavalry and their gallant leader. Perhaps some were disappointed in the silent, small, undemonstrative man who trotted awkwardly in--for, like Napoleon, General French was not a showy horseman--seemingly unconscious that he had achieved something which would be for ever remembered in military history. Yet with this man rested the honour of the march. "It should never be forgotten," writes a soldier who rode with him, "that what decided the fate of the day was the General's masterly decision in the early morning to cut his way through what then seemed to be an almost surrounding of us by the enemy, and, instead of losing time by waiting to fight them, to leave them and risk their being on our flank and rear for the rest of the day." An even greater result than the relief of Kimberley was the demonstration which this march afforded of the fact that the Boers were helpless against flank attack by a mobile cavalry. The Boer tactics suddenly collapsed now the day of frontal assaults was over, and in that hour the danger to the British Empire passed away. [Sidenote: Bivouac in a Boer camp.] [Sidenote: FEB. 15, 1900.] _Seizure of Jacobsdal._] In the final rush another Boer laager was captured, with a great quantity of stores and ammunition. The bulk of the British force bivouacked in or near this camp, where there was a good supply of water; only General French and some hundreds of his men entered the delivered city. It still remained to be seen whether Kimberley was really free, or whether, as Boer sympathisers inside and outside the town pretended, General French had simply walked into a trap set by Cronje. [Illustration: _H. C. Seppings Wright._] [_After a sketch by Fred Villiers._ THE CITY IMPERIAL VOLUNTEERS' BAPTISM OF FIRE.] [Sidenote: C.I.V.s' baptism of fire.] [Sidenote: Seizure of Jacobsdal.] [Sidenote: [FEB. 15, 1900.]