Thinking discretion the
better part of valour, I regretfully turned away from Mafeking by the
road leading up an incline to the laager, still several miles distant.
The cart was suddenly brought to a standstill by almost driving into a
Boer outpost, crouched under a ruined wall, from which point of vantage
they were firing with their rifles at the advance trenches of the town.
The officer in charge of this party told me I must stay here till
sundown, when he and his men would accompany me to headquarters, as he
averred the road I was now pursuing was not safe from the Mafeking
gun-range. I therefore waited their good pleasure for an hour, during
which time the firing from all round the town went on in a desultory
sort of way, occasionally followed by a boom from a large Boer gun, and
the short, sharp, hammering noise from the enemy's one-pounder Maxim.
The sun was almost down when the burgher in charge gave the signal to
bring up their horses, and in a few minutes we were under way. This time
I was attended by a bodyguard of about eighteen or twenty burghers, and
we went along, much to my annoyance, at a funereal pace. On our way we
met the relieving guard coming out to take the place just evacuated by
my escort. When seen riding thus more or less in ranks, a Boer squadron,
composed of picked men for outpost duty, presented really a formidable
appearance.
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