The cart was also riddled, but,
strange to say, Captain Lambert was untouched, and succeeded in swimming
to the further bank, the Boers firing at him whenever the flashes of
lightning revealed his whereabouts. After sticking some time in the mud
of the bank he managed to effect his escape, and next day reached the
house of an Englishman called Groom, living in the Free State, and from
thence made his way to Natal.
Two of the murderers were put through a form of trial, after the
conclusion of peace, and acquitted.
The case of the murder of Dr. Barber is of a somewhat similar character
to that of Elliot, except that there is in this case a curious piece of
indirect evidence that seems to connect the murder directly with Piet
Joubert, one of the Triumvirate.
In the month of February 1881, two Englishmen came to the Boer laager
at Lang's Nek to offer their services as doctors. Their names were Dr.
Barber, who was well known to the Boers, and his assistant, Mr. Walter
Dyas, and they came, not from Natal, but the Orange Free State.
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