CHAPTER EIGHT.
VOLUNTEERS VOLUNTEER.
Rumours that proved to be false and rumours that proved to be true were plentiful enough during the following fortnight; and in that time Kimberley was transformed from a busy mining camp in which the black and white inhabitants were constantly going and coming like ants in a hill to a town whose siege was imminent, and whose people thought of nothing but preparing for the enemy, and whose talk was of rifle, cartridge, and trench.
But there was something done beside talk, the people loyally joining with the small military garrison in preparing for the defence of the place; and, while one portion worked to strengthen every spot that would form a redoubt, the other strove as long as was possible to get in stores to enable the defenders to hold out if they were besieged.

For the determination was strong to save the enormous wealth of the place from the enemy whose borders were so short a distance from their lines.
Drilling and instruction in the use of arms were carried on almost night and day, and in a very short time the military element seemed to have pretty well swallowed up the civil, while each hour found the people more ready to meet the first rush of the dogs of war.
It was a most unsuitable place for defence, being a mere mining camp pitched in a wide bare plain, the only part suitable for turning into a keep being the huge mound cast up by the excavations in the search for diamonds; and this was fortified to the best of the defenders' ability almost from the first.

But the situation had its advantages as well as failings, for the flat, open, desert-like land stretched right away on all sides, giving an enemy no undue advantages in the shape of kopje or ravine to turn into a natural fortress from which the town could be attacked.
The place, then, was a fair example of weakness and strength, the latter, however, daily growing, in the shape of a stern determination to give the Boers a very warm reception when they did attack.
So the days glided rapidly by, with authentic news at first fairly abundant, but invariably of a very serious nature, and whenever they were off the new duties they had to fulfil, the said news was amply discussed by the two young men, who from their prior preparation had stood forward at once as prominent members of the semi-military force.
"Be patient," said Ingleborough laughingly, one evening; "there'll be plenty of fighting by-and-by.

I'd no idea you were going to develop into such a fire-eater." "Fire-eater?
Absurd! I only feel deeply interested in all we are doing." "That's right, Noll! So do we all; but let's have no rashness.
Remember all the drill and discipline.

That's where we shall be able to tell against the enemy.