The two men went out on patrol and by night crept up a
kopje behind which about three hundred British cavalrymen were
bivouacking. The men were twenty miles distant from their laagers at
Dundee and only a short distance from Ladysmith, but they lay down and
slept on the other side of the kopje, less than a hundred yards from the
cavalrymen. In the morning the British cavalry was divided into three
squads, and all started for Ladysmith. Le Roux and Nel swept down toward
the last squad, and called, "Hands up," to one of the men in the van. The
cavalryman promptly held up his hands and a minute afterward surrendered
his gun and himself, while the remainder of the squad fled precipitately.
The two scouts, with their prisoner, quickly made a _detour_ of another
kopje, and appeared in front of the first squad, of whom they made a
similar demand. One of the cavalrymen, who was in advance of the others,
surrendered without attempting to make any resistance, while the others
turned quickly to the right and rode headlong into a deep sluit. Le Roux
shot the horse of one of the men before he reached the sluit, loaded the
unhorsed man on one of the other prisoner's horses, and then pursued the
fleeing cavalrymen almost to the city-limits of Ladysmith.
Major Albrecht, the head of the Free State-Artillery, was one of the
bravest men in General Cronje's commando, and his display of courage at
the battle of Magersfontein was not less extraordinary than that which he
made later in the river bed at Paardeberg.
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