BRAVE AS THE HEROES OF BALACLAVA.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13435, 24 July 1911, Page 8

BRAVE AS THE HEROES OF BALACLAVA.

In Sir diaries Napier's campaign against tlio liillmen in Upper Seiude, a detacliment of troops became separated from the main body, and found themselves in a valley, where the cliffs on cither side were bristling with the long rifles of the euemv. They numbered twelve in all, with a sergeant in command. The captain, from a distance, gave the signal for return, but. mistaking it lor an order to charge, the twelve sent up a, ringing cheer, and glorified the blunder by the audacity of their courage. 1 welvc against seventy made fearful odds, hut up and on they went until the .'summit of the cliff which they were scaling was reached. There they fought anti there they fell, not one was left aiivc; the enemy stripped them, and threw their poor gashed corpses down the precipice, and when the rest of the army came up they found that each of the twelve had a nece of red thread tied round the wrist. That was the badge of honour, by which the foe. though cruel and uncivilised, showed their appreciation of the valour and noble self-sacrifice of those who had resisted unto death against them. A KILL FROM A TREE.

IVitli great difficulty he got off his perch and ;v little way down the tree, when he fell with a whninn to the bottom, where he lay for a second. He was so cramped with that long wait that he could hardly move. However, we scrambled up the bank and walked shoulder to shoulder through the high grass. There lay the lion as he had described, with one hind-leg in the qir, dead. He had taken him plumb between his eyes. “What on earth wore you at:’’ I asked him. “Well.'’ he said. “I had seen you and the boy coming across a glade a long way off, and thought you must lie somewhere near, when I saw the lion coming through the bushes—not straight towards the kill, but away to my left,' and about seventy yards off from the tree. He was crouching along from bush to bush, like a great eat. with his ears pricked, stopping and listening. I thought of shooting at him; but he was coming towards the tree, so I waited. When he got where he is now, aliout thirty yards off, he slopped, as if he winded something, and looked in your direction. I made sign behind my hack in case you were anywhere near, and raised my rifle. As I moved lie saw me. put his ears back and glared at me, and then dropped flat on his belly with his head between his paws, staring up af me. I quietly put up my rifle, drew a bead between bis eyes, pulled the trigger, but the rifle did not go off. I kept my eves on him, as he also did on me. and pushed the . lock aa you showed me, and tried again, with the same re-ult. Three times I did this, and he never stirred. I was in despair, feeling you were close by, and thinking he had winded you or the poniers, and might he on yon' without you knowing lie was there. I was still looking ■at ’him- and fiddling with the bolt, and on the point of shouting. “Look out. Colonel; here’s the bally lion, and the bally gnu won’t go off:’ when the lock teemed to shoot iu with a litllc click, and X tried a fr aiu and got him between Hu- eves.''