But French was not only not to be stopped, but could
not even be retarded. Disregarding the Boer fire completely the
cavalry swept in wave after wave over the low nek, and so round the
base of the hills. The Boer riflemen upon the kopjes must have seen
a magnificent military spectacle as regiment after regiment, the
9th Lancers leading, all in very open order, swept across the plain
at a gallop, and so passed over the nek. A few score horses and
half as many men were left behind them, but forty or fifty Boers
were cut down in the pursuit. It appears to have been one of the
very few occasions during the campaign when that obsolete and
absurd weapon the sword was anything but a dead weight to its
bearer.
And now the force had a straight run in before it, for it had
outpaced any further force of Boers which may have been advancing
from the direction of Magersfontein. The horses, which had come a
hundred miles in four days with insufficient food and water, were
so done that it was no uncommon sight to see the trooper not only
walking to ease his horse, but carrying part of his monstrous
weight of saddle gear.
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