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Immediately upon hearing of the incident, after lights had been brought and the scarcely dignified attitudes of the startled gods revealed, Ben-Zayb, filled with holy indignation, and with the approval of the press-censor secured beforehand, hastened home an entresol where he lived in a mess with others to write an article that would be the sublimest ever penned under the skies of the Philippines.
We smiled again and spurred the horses forward. We abused the press-censor roundly we were extremely indignant with him. It was so like him to lose himself the day Ladysmith was relieved. "Confound him," we muttered, and grinned guiltily. We felt as we used to feel when we were playing truant from school. We were nearing Pieter's Station now, and were half-way to Ladysmith.
"Besides, we don't know where the press-censor is, do we?" No, of course we had no idea where the press-censor was, and unless he said that Ladysmith was relieved, the fact that twenty-five thousand other soldiers said so counted for idle gossip. Our papers could not expect us to go riding over mountains the day Ladysmith was relieved, hunting for a press-censor.
The sight of the press-censor stamp reminded an English officer, who had lived in Belgium, of the way letters to and from interned Belgians have been taken over the frontier into Holland and there dispatched. Men who are willing to risk their lives for money collect these letters. At one time the price was as high as two hundred francs for each one.
"That press-censor," gasped Hartland, "never is where he ought to be." The words were bumped out of him as he was shot up and down in the saddle. That was it. It was the press-censor's fault. Our consciences were clear now. If our papers worried themselves or us because they did not receive the great news until every one else knew of it, it was all because of that press-censor.
At Pieter's Station the blood was still fresh on the grass where two hours before some of the South African Light Horse had been wounded. The Boers were still on Bulwana then? Perhaps, after all, we had better turn back and try to find that press-censor.
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