With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born Leader, G. A. Henty [best novels to read .TXT] 📗

It was exciting work as the mounted horse under Lord Dundonald rode along. As far as could be seen from the various points in our possession the passage was clear, but experience had taught how the Boers would lie quiet, even when in large numbers, while scouts were passing close to them. At Colenso Colonel Long had sent two mounted men on ahead of his battery. They had been permitted to pass within a hundred yards of thousands of Boers among the bushes on the river bank, and had even crossed the bridge and returned without a rifle shot being fired or a Boer showing his head. And it was on their report that there were apparently no Boers in the neighbourhood that the batteries were pushed forward into the fatal trap prepared for them. So Chris and his companions, at the rear of the colonial cavalry, trotted along ready at a moment's notice to swing round their rifles for instant action. They watched every stone and clump of bushes on the slopes of the valley for any foe that might be lurking there, and who at any moment might pour out a rain of bullets into the column. Very few words were spoken on the way, the tension was too great. They knew that Ladysmith had telegraphed that the Boers appeared to be everywhere falling back. But a few thousands of their best fighting men might have remained to strike one terrible blow at the troops who in open fight had shown themselves their superiors, and had driven them from position after position that they believed impregnable. However, as one after another of the spots where an ambuscade would be likely to be laid passed, and there were still no signs of the enemy, the keenness of the watch began to abate, and the set expression of the faces to relax. Then as the hills receded and the valley opened before them a pleasurable excitement succeeded the grim expectation of battle. The task that had proved so hard was indeed fulfilled; the Boers were gone, and the siege of Ladysmith was at an end. As they emerged from the valley into the plain in which Ladysmith is situated, there was an insensible increase of speed; men talked joyously together, scarcely waiting for replies; the horses seemed to catch the infection of their riders' spirits, and the pennons of the Lancers in front to flutter more gaily. Onward they swept, cantering now until they approached the town.

Then men could be seen running towards the road; from every house they poured out, men and women, some waving hats and handkerchiefs, some too much overpowered by their feelings for outward demonstrations. As the columns reached this point they broke into a walk, and answered with ringing cheers the fainter but no less hearty hurrahs of those they came to rescue; and yet the troopers themselves were scarcely less affected than the crowd that pressed round to shake them by the hand. They had known that provisions were nearly exhausted in the city, and that for some time past all had been on short rations; but they had not dreamt of anything like this. It seemed to them that they were surrounded by a population of skeletons, haggard and worn, almost too weak to drag themselves along, almost too feeble to shout, their clothes in rags, their eyes unnaturally large, their hands nerveless, their utterances broken by sobs. They realized for the first time how terrible had been the privations, how great the sufferings of the garrison and people of Ladysmith. For the soldiers were there as well as the civilians. There was little military in their appearance; there was no uniformity in their dress, save that all were alike ragged, stained and destitute of colour.

Could their rescuers have seen them, themselves unseen, a few days earlier, they would have been even more shocked. Then the listlessness brought about by hope deferred, and of late almost the extinction of hope, weakness caused by disease and famine, had been supreme; and had the Boers had any idea of the state to which they were reduced, a renewal of the attack of the eth of January could hardly have failed of success. The last few days, however, had revived their hopes. They had learned by the ever-nearing roar of the cannon that progress was being made, and for the past four days had from elevated points near the town been able to make out the movements of our troops on the positions they had captured. They had seen the Boers breaking up their camps, carrying off their stores either by waggon across the western passes or by the trains from Modder Spruit. They had seen the cannon being withdrawn from their positions on the hills, and felt that their deliverance was at hand.

Through an ever-increasing crowd the column moved on.

[Image: THE RELIEF OF LADYSMITH.]

From barrack and hospital, from dwelling-house and the dug-out shelter-caves on the railway bank people flocked up. Sir George White and his staff, the mayor, and the town guards, every officer and soldier, joined in the greeting. But no stay was made. After a few minutes' talk with Sir George White, Lord Dundonald gave the order, and the cavalry moved forward, and as soon as they were free from the crowd trotted on at a rapid pace in hopes of overtaking the retiring Boers, and glad that the scene to which they had looked forward with such pleasant expectations was at an end. There had not been a dry eye among them. None could have witnessed the sobbing women, the men down whose cheeks the tears streamed uncontrolledly, and have remained himself unmoved.

"It is terrible," Chris said to Sankey, who was riding next to him. "I