"Why didn't you
people cheer General Buller when he came in?" we asked later. "Oh,
was that General Buller?" they inquired. "We didn't recognize him."
"But you knew he was a general officer, you knew he was the first of
the relieving column?" "Ye-es, but we didn't know who he was."
I decided that the bare fact of the relief of Ladysmith was all I
would be able to wire to my neglected paper, and with remorses
started to find the Ladysmith censor. Two officers, with whom I
ventured to break the hush that hung upon the town by asking my way,
said they were going in the direction of the censor. We rode for
some distance in guarded silence. Finally, one of them, with an
inward struggle, brought himself to ask, "Are you from the outside?"
I was forced to admit that I was. I felt that I had taken an
unwarrantable liberty in intruding on a besieged garrison. I wanted
to say that I had lost my way and had ridden into the town by
mistake, and that I begged to be allowed to withdraw with apologies.
The other officer woke up suddenly and handed me a printed list of
the prices which had been paid during the siege for food and tobacco.
He seemed to offer it as being in some way an official apology for
his starved appearance.
