What had brought him to South Africa, or how he came to be in Mafeking, I never discovered; but he was a cheerful individual, absolutely fearless of shells and bullets.
That morning I began to get very anxious, and Mitchell was also pessimistic.

He mounted to the roof to watch the progress of the fight, and ran down from time to time with anything but reassuring pieces of intelligence, asking me at intervals, when the firing was specially fierce: "Are you scared, lady ?" At length he reported that our men were falling back, and that the ambulances could now be seen at work.

With marvellous courage and coolness, the soldiers had advanced absolutely to under the walls of the Boer fort, and had found the latter 8 feet high, with three tiers of loopholes.

There it was that three officers--Captains Vernon, Paton, and Sandford--were shot down, Captain Fitzclarence having been previously wounded in the leg, and left on the veldt calling to his men not to mind him, but to go on, which order they carried out, nothing daunted by the hail of bullets and the loss of their officers.

Thanks to the marvellous information the Boers constantly received during the siege, no doubt from the numerous Dutch spies which were known to be in the town, Game Tree Fort had been mysteriously strengthened in the night; and, what was still more significant, the gun had not only been removed, but General Snyman and Commandment Botha were both on the scene with reinforcements shortly after our attack commenced, although the Boer Headquarter camp was fully three miles away.