The flag which was never hauled down throughout the siege.
The flag still flying in Ladysmith.
The Boer guns could not be heard, so that, for all men knew, the garrison had fallen. Yet one of those strange rumours, which in the old-world days told the Greeks, as they joined battle at Mycale, that their countrymen, hundreds of miles away, had on the same day beaten back the barbarian, ran swiftly through the camp. How or whence it comes, this sudden and unaccountable second-sight, no man can tell, and psychologists can but conjecture. For the story told with substantial truth that at 5 p.m. of the previous day, at which precise hour General Ian Hamilton and the Devons had sent the foe reeling down from Wagon Hill, the Boers had been repulsed and 400 of the enemy taken prisoners. Not till the following day was definite news forthcoming. Then it was known that with terrible loss the heroic garrison had driven back the Boers and kept the British flag flying over Ladysmith. Ian Hamilton, the wounded of Majuba, had been the hero of the defence.
Satisfaction reigned in the camps, though there were some who asked, when the losses were known, how it would be if the Boers repeated their assault. But now the signs of immediate movement filled the air and fixed all attention. The relief army was preparing to strike its second blow.
INDIANS CARRYING A WOUNDED OFFICER IN A DOOLIE.
FOR THE GREATER COMFORT OF THE WOUNDED.
The McCormack-Brook wheeled stretcher-carriage is largely used in South Africa.