CHAPTER VIII.
BETRAYED BY A PIGEON--THE BOERS COME AT LAST "For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which has wings shall tell the matter."-- ECCLES.

x.

20.
The day after my arrival at Setlagoli some natives came in with apparently well-authenticated news of an English victory near Vryburg.
They also asserted that the line was already being relaid to Maribogo, and that the railway servants had returned to that station.

I drove over at once to prove the truth of their statements; of course, I found they were all false, except the fact of the station-master having returned to the barricaded and desolate station.

I discovered him sitting disconsolately at the door of his ruined house, gloomily perusing "Nicholas Nickleby." On returning home, I was delighted to find interesting letters from Mr.and Mrs.Rochfort Maguire, who were shut up in Kimberley, as was also Mr.Rhodes.The latter had despatched them by a boy, ordered to continue his journey to Mafeking with other missives and also with some colonial newspapers.