We lost three men that way. During the night they tried to carry the
place, but we were all at the wall; and had the best of it, as we had
only to show our heads, while they were altogether exposed. There was
not much firing next day, and it was evident that they meant to starve
us out. There was not a scrap of food to be found in the place; but
fortunately there was a small thatched kraal inside the yard which gave
some forage for the horses. The next day we killed one of them for food.
"That night we agreed that when the Boers saw that we did not surrender
in a day or two they would be sure that we must be eating the horses, as
any food we brought with us must be exhausted, and they would then make
a determined attack; for we knew we had killed eight or ten of them, and
that they would not go away. So we decided that the only hope was for
one of us to ride here; we tossed up who should try to get through the
Boers, and the lot fell upon me. I took the best of the horses. We had
agreed from the first that this would have to be done, and had given
what scraps of bread we could spare to it; besides which, they were all
in fair condition, as the yard was strewn with rubbish, and some party
of Boers had ripped up all the beds and straw mattresses and scattered
the contents about.
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