When he woke it was still night. Fearing discovery by day, he leapt from the train with no more hurt than a severe shaking, and as dawn came hid in some broken ground amidst trees. He drank at a pool of water and ate one of his cakes of chocolate. And then, thinking over his situation—to quote his own strangely moving words—"I realised with awful force that no exercise of my own feeble wit and strength could save me from my enemies, and that without the assistance of that High Power which interferes more often than we are always prone to admit in the eternal sequence of causes and effects I could never succeed. I prayed long and earnestly for help and guidance. My prayer, as it seems to me, was swiftly and wonderfully answered. I cannot now relate the strange circumstances which followed, and which changed my nearly hopeless position into one of superior advantage. But after the war is over I shall hope to somewhat lengthen this account, and so remarkable will the addition be that I cannot believe the reader will complain." "More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of," echoes the poet. And fresh from contact with the Boers, who yet believed in God, the fugitive sought and found that help without which the best efforts of man cannot prosper.
That night Mr. Churchill once more set out along the railway, walking and hoping to board a train. But no train came, and progress was slow and difficult. Five more days and nights he spent in this fashion; on the sixth his chance came. He found in a siding a train labelled Lourenço Marques; boarded it and wormed his way to the bottom of a truck laden with sacks of wool or some other soft material, and lay there perdu for two-and-a-half days, till at last Delagoa Bay was reached. Once the truck was searched, yet he was not discovered. At Delagoa he took a steamer for Natal, sending on the way an earnest appeal to the British nation to persist in the war and despatch to South Africa a quarter of a million men. Thus providentially set free by the Hand which carries through dangers and trials the men who have a great work to do in the world, he rejoined General Buller's army in time to share the hopes and sorrows of the famous flank march.
Boer attack on Cæsar's Camp.
The early days of January passed and the signs of an immediate advance accumulated. In all the camps action was in the air; the last touches were being put to the transport; an embargo was laid upon all news which might instruct England or the enemy of what was in preparation. These indications could not have escaped the watchful eye of the Boer Government, and early, very early, in the morning of January 6 the Boers struck their blow. At 2 a.m. the British camp at Chieveley was awakened by the distant tumult of a heavy artillery fire away towards Ladysmith. The thunder of the guns was continuous and ominous. All the morning it lasted, while the British soldiers listened, and chafed, and wondered, and, as the truth dawned upon them, prayed that Ladysmith might that day uphold the honour and greatness of England.
F. de Haenen.] [From a sketch by Winston Churchill.
WAITING FOR NIGHT.
After dropping from the goods train, Mr. Churchill hid for fourteen hours in a wood, consumed with thirst, and watched, as he relates in his letter to the Morning Post, by a vulture, "who manifested an extravagant interest in my condition, and made hideous and ominous gurglings from time to time."
[Jan. 6, 1900.
The morning passed in anxiety and the growl of the guns ceased. The day was black and stormy, but at times the sun broke through the clouds and the heliographs flashed fitfully. From Ladysmith came these messages of alarm:—