Kimberley, however, was a convenient immediate base between Orange River and Mafeking. Around these two places rumour was spreading a well-woven net of probabilities, intimate yet inherently impossible. War, bloody and fierce, was alternately looming large in the horizon just above their situations, so for the moment I tarried, watching the approach of impending battle from afar off. It was a fine feeling, the constant thrill caused by the mere vividness of martial rumours. They came from Buluwayo in the North, they came from Cape Town in the South, they were brought daily from Bloemfontein; and if they gave infinite zest to the passing hours, it was but the happenings of the hour that they were doomed to be misbelieved. To listen to the gossip and rumours of Headquarters at once became the most serious interest which our life contained just now. Spies are seen everywhere. Within the shade of every shadow there is said to lurk a Boer secret service agent, and, as a consequence, the attitude of the public is one in which each figuratively lays a grimy finger to his nose and breathes blasphemies in whispers to his confiding friend. The spy mania which swept through France but a few weeks ago has appeared here, endowed with magnificent vitality. At Mafeking it has dominated both the military and the public, and, as an illustration, I append the official notice, on page 46, in which many of these gentry are warned from the town by Lord Edward Cecil, Chief Staff Officer to Colonel Baden-Powell.
NOTICE.
SPIES
There are in town to-day nine
known spies. They are hereby
warned to leave before 12 noon to-morrow
or they will be apprehended.
By order,
E. H. CECIL, Major,
C.S.O.