The men were dazed by what they had undergone, and Nature shrank back from that deadly zone where the bullets fell so thickly.

But the pipes blew, and the bugles sang, and the poor tired fellows, the backs of their legs so flayed and blistered by lying in the sun that they could hardly bend them, hobbled back to their duty.

They worked up to the guns once more, and the moment of danger passed.
But as the evening wore on it became evident that no attack could succeed, and that therefore there was no use in holding the men in front of the enemy's position.

The dark Cronje, lurking among his ditches and his barbed wire, was not to be approached, far less defeated.

There are some who think that, had we held on there as we did at the Modder River, the enemy would again have been accommodating enough to make way for us during the night, and the morning would have found the road clear to Kimberley.