Just one year before British soldiers had lain under similar circumstances on the plain which leads to Modder River, and now on a smaller scale the very same drama was being enacted.

Gradually the violet haze of evening deepened into darkness, and the incessant rattle of the rifle fire died away on either side.

Again, as at Modder River, the British infantry still lay in their position, determined to take no backward step, and again the Boers stole away in the night, leaving the ridge which they had defended so well.
A hundred killed and wounded was the price paid by the British for that line of rock studded hills--a heavier proportion of losses than had befallen Lord Methuen in the corresponding action.

Of the Boer losses there was as usual no means of judging, but several grave-mounds, newly dug, showed that they also had something to deplore.

Their retreat, however, was not due to exhaustion, but to the demonstration which Lyttelton had been able to make in their rear.