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Occasional bursts of machine-gun fire punctuated the continuous rifle-firing from the men concealed in the bush. It was a prodigious waste of ammunition without any good result, for the white men were too hardened to be shaken by the moral effect of bullets whizzing overhead, while the native warriors, taking the pattern set by their allies, showed no signs of fear or panic.
She had been out for a ride during the forenoon, and was now trying to make up for it by taking the burden of most of the work upon her comely shoulders. In the middle of one of her snatches of song she abruptly paused with the question: "Did you hear that, mother?" "No; to what do you refer?" "The sound of rifle-firing; something is wrong on the range."
After the firing had continued for some brief time in front, it opened from both sides of the environing wood on our advancing column. The men dropped rapidly, the officers in greater number than the men. At first, as I said, these cheered and answered the enemy's fire, our guns even opening on the wood, and seeming to silence the French in ambuscade there. But the hidden rifle-firing began again.
"Thomas James Thackeray's 'The Soldier's Manual of Rifle-Firing' appeared in 1858, and undoubtedly had its day of usefulness. Thomas Kipling was professor of divinity at Cambridge University toward the end of the eighteenth century. In 1793 he edited the volume I now hold in my hand, 'Codex Bezæ, one of the most precious of our extant MSS. of the New Testament.
I saw not what followed upon this last despairing effort, for now Tybee was down and I was kneeling beside him to search for the wound. But when I looked again, the crackling crashes of the rifle-firing had ceased. A stout, gray-headed man, whom I afterward knew as Isaac Shelby's father, was riding up from the patriot line to receive Captain de Peyster's sword, and the battle was ended.
Yesterday numbers of Boers were seen retiring from Pieter's Station across the ridges towards Bester's Valley, but no sign of a general retreat yet beyond the report of scouts, who say that several guns have been seen going back at a gallop behind Bulwaan, followed by nearly two hundred waggons. Last night we heard rifle-firing on the ridges south of Cæsar's Camp and Waggon Hill.
Torn by shrapnel from above, its lines rent by machine-gun and rifle-firing, the attackers stood and rallied for a moment; then shouts burst from them of terror, of hatred, and of execration, only to be followed by hoarse commands to move forward. Then the masses broke.
Unhappily, there can be no doubt that one of our doctors was heavily fired on whilst dressing a man's wounds on the field. December 11, 1899. Soon after two in the night I heard rifle-firing, then two explosions, and heavier rifle-firing again, apparently two or three miles away.
Although all is quiet without, it is not possible that everyone has fled, because some rifle-firing is going on.... When I arrived the Japanese had already discovered that a Chinese camp had been quietly established less than a quarter of a mile away. Half an hour afterwards a breathless Japanese sailor brought in a report that snipers had been seen stealthily approaching.
They had risen to their feet, and were giving a hasty look to their arms, when a bright flash lit up the gloom from without, followed by a sharp report, and at the same moment, from all quarters of the town, rose a continuous rifle-firing, a violent uproar and shouting, and a deep beating of drums.
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