Leonidas and his three hundred
did more for the Spartan cause by their memory than by their living
valour.
Man passes like the brown leaves, but the tradition of a
nation lives on like the oak that sheds them - and the passing of
the leaves is nothing if the bole be the sounder for it. But a
counsel of perfection is easy at a study table. There are other
things to be said - the responsibility of officers for the lives of
their men, the hope that they may yet be of service to their
country. All was weighed, all was thought of, and so at last the
white flag went up. The officer who hoisted it could see no one
unhurt save himself, for all in his sangar were hit, and the others
were so placed that he was under the impression that they had
withdrawn altogether. Whether this hoisting of the flag necessarily
compromised the whole force is a difficult question, but the Boers
instantly left their cover, and the men in the sangars behind, some
of whom had not been so seriously engaged, were ordered by their
officers to desist from firing. In an instant the victorious Boers
were among them.
It was not, as I have been told by those who were there, a sight
which one would wish to have seen or care now to dwell upon.
Haggard officers cracked their sword-blades and cursed the day that
they had been born.
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