CHAPTER XVII.

THE HALT BY THE LOGHUR RIVER.

Quickly marched our retreating forces, so menacing was the aspect and daring the conduct of the Afghans, that all felt as if something was to be got over, and that the sooner it was faced boldly and gone over, the better.

Prior to leaving the Cantonments, Rose had thought of dropping her whip en route, so that one of the handsome young cornets might have to dismount and pick it up; and thus, that by the consequent delay, they should be enabled to ride a little apart from the ladies and the escort; now—all such coquettish schemes and follies were forgotten.

Her Arab had been sidling along, coquetting with its own shadow, and rendering an officer's hand on the reins requisite now and then. Even of that attention Rose was oblivious now; laughter and fun had passed away, and a cold shiver passed down the poor girl's spine as she looked around her.

Hemmed in and crowded on by the invading rabble, the march of the columns became speedily disordered, and the music of the bands ceased. The moment our troops were clear of the Cantonments, a vast tide of Afghans, some eight thousand at least, rushed in to pillage the bungalows and other buildings, and then gave all to the flames; thus an indescribable tumult took place. Elsewhere, parties of armed horsemen made cruel and reckless dashes—literal charges—through the long and straggling procession of helpless camp-followers, and even through the column which had the baggage, cutting men down on all sides, and carrying off whatever they could lay hands on, in some instances tearing white children from the arms of their shrieking ayahs and bearing them off at the saddle-bow, to future slavery or death. Corpses soon encumbered all the route, and the snow became reddened with blood.

The air seemed to become laden with a Babel of tumultuous sounds; the fierce yells of the Afghans encouraging each other to rapine and slaughter; the more maniac-like cries of the fanatical Ghazees; the wild wailing of the Hindostani servants, as they, their wives or children perished, under the sabre or the occasional pistol-shot; the roaring of the frightened camels; the bellowing of the artillery bullocks; the voices of the European officers, seeking for a time to control the fury of their men, but succeeding for a time only, for the last file of the rear guard was barely out of the Cantonments, when from the whole line of the western wall, volleys of red flashing musketry were opened upon us by the Afghans, with their juzails, matchlocks, and even those percussion muskets which Sir Robert Sale was not permitted to take to Jellalabad. Lieutenant Hardyman, of the 5th Cavalry, fell from his horse, shot through the heart, and fifty more were killed or wounded at the same time; but though the 54th, to which corps Waller's company was attached, commenced an independent file-firing, facing about from time to time as they retreated, the Afghans still pressed upon the columns, discharging their long rifles with sure and deadly aim; thus, ere long the retreat became a flight, leaving on all sides Hindoos, men, women, and children, expiring of cold, starvation, exhaustion, or wounds.

Imitating the example of Polwhele, Denzil sheathed his sword, and arming himself with a dead man's musket, fired till his hands and elbows ached with the exertion of loading.

Tents and baggage of every kind, even a piece of cannon, were speedily abandoned to the Afghans, for the native servants and drivers fled on all sides, thinking to save their lives, but only to be eventually slaughtered in detail; while slowly and laboriously through the snow the troops moved towards a gorge in the hills of Siah Sung, in hope to get through the Khoord Cabul Pass before nightfall.

The forms of our half-starved soldiers who had been long on scanty rations of dhal, wild radishes, rice and ghee, were wasted and thin; their faces were hollow and wan; their whiskers were matted by mud and blood, the powder of bitten cartridges, and, in many instances, icicles hung from them as the breath froze on their moustaches.

With the baggage, all the remaining treasure became the spoil of the enemy; many a handsome Hindoo girl was borne off by the horsemen, who, though they galloped in bold defiance along the flanks of the retreating force, did not, as yet, attempt to molest the solid array of the Queen's 44th Foot. It was as in the song of Pindara:—

"Deeply with saree, doputta, and shawl,
    Jewels and gold the lootera is laden;
Silks and brocades, and what's better than all,
    We have the choice of the matron and maiden!
                            Zenana and harem
                            Ring forth the alarm—
Vainly their riches and beauties are hoarded!
                            Hoora! hoora!
                            Quick with the damsels,
For hills must be clambered and rivers be forded!"

From the rocks of Siah Sung, as the gorge was entered, more than one juzail ball found its way into the ranks of the advanced guard. The two fair-haired Cornets of the Irregular Cavalry, mere boys, in most brilliantly elaborate uniforms, fell; both were shot down to perish miserably amid the snow and mud. They sank in succession under the hoofs of the horses ridden by Mabel and Rose, and were left to the Afghans, whose knives would soon end their miseries.

"Oh what a sight for English ladies to look upon!" exclaimed Audley Trevelyan, feeling acutely the horror of all they were subjected to, while the tears they were forced to shed became frozen on their pale cheeks by the icy mountain wind.

Mabel had her riding switch shot away by a casual bullet; Lady Sale had one of her arms wounded by another, and several balls passed through the skirt of her riding habit.

Down below the hills into which they were advancing, and far away in the rear, a sheet of fire still enveloped the whole oblong area of the Cantonments, and the plain through which the Cabul flows was enveloped in rolling smoke, amid which the square masses of the Afghan forts loomed darkly forth; but few cared to give a backward glance as the troops toiled doggedly into the mountain gorges, where darkness, the winter-storm, and the treacherous foe went with them.

Snow, snow everywhere; the chill atmosphere was full of it; aslant the white flakes were falling to join others on the leafless planes and poplars, on the upturned faces and stiffening bodies of the dead. There was no horizon; all trace of it had disappeared; the Afghan horsemen hovering on the flanks were like shadows or spectres in the gloom—but shadows from whence a red flash came forth at times, and then a bullet whistled past on its errand of death. After a time these wild cavaliers rode into the ravines, and nothing was seen in the grey obscurity but the white flakes falling silently athwart it; and there were thawing and freezing—freezing and thawing at one and the same time.

It was misery, intense misery, all, and Denzil had but one thought, that on the ruddy, shiny, auburn billows of Rose's hair, and of her sister's too, these flakes were falling now.

With nightfall the firing had ceased; the soldiers marched sternly and silently on in the dark, and even the least callous among them had ceased to shudder now when treading softly on the limbs or breasts of the dead who encumbered the way. And to those in the rear, it seemed as if all in front were perishing.

"Meanwhile, amid all this horror, where is she?" thought Denzil; "with my precious cousin no doubt—yet, I pray God, that he may be able to protect her."

More than once on that disastrous march, however, had Audley ridden back to the rear guard to see if Denzil was safe, and to kindly proffer the use of his brandy flask. And now, by a miserable destiny, instead of advancing that night straight through the Khoord Cabul Pass, the inane old General allowed the Afghans to take possession of it, while he, most fatally, ordered his forces to encamp on the right of the Loghur river, if encamping it could be called, when the tents and baggage had alike been lost, the troops were without fuel and had only the snow to lie upon, and the falling snow to cover them.

"The bugles of the advanced guard are sounding a halt," said Waller; "it may be unwise, but I thank Heaven, as I am ready to drop, and shall have to snooze like the rest amid the snow and our glory. Glory—pah! I would rather have a glass of brandy-pawnee hot, than all the glory to be got in British India. Polwhele, make the company pile arms when we come to the halting-place—and now to look after the Trecarrels—God help them!"

As corps after corps came up and halted, friends and comrades could enquire as to who had been killed or lost on the march; wounded there could be none, as all who sank behind were certain to perish by cold or the long trenchant knives of the Afghans, who had a particular fancy for decapitating all the victims that fell into their hands.

Officers and soldiers were alike maddened with fury against the infamous treachery of those who had been paid in such terms to let them and their families depart in peace; and on all sides were heard the bitterest execrations of Ackbar Khan and his adherents. These became mingled with loud lamentations and cries of despair, when husbands found that their wives, wives that their husbands, or parents that their children, had been lost—hopelessly lost—on that long and terrible path of death and suffering, which led down the mountains to the rear, a path where none might dare to return or search for those they loved.

In cold and starvation those who had succeeded in bringing their little ones thus far on the way, could only pray, and weep the dire necessities of war, and marvel in their hearts if the time would ever come when swords should be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks, and "when nation shall not lift up the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." As yet, that piping time of peace seemed a long way off.

A few sentinels were posted in the direction of the enemy, and their posts some of them never quitted alive, being found frozen and dead when the relief went round an hour after. A little fire was made for the ladies by burning Audley's pistol-case and an ammunition keg; and full of pity, compassion, and horror, that women delicately and tenderly nurtured as they had been, should be subjected to miseries such as these, Waller, Denzil, Ravelstoke, and a few others procured by great exertion a sepoy pall, or tent, from the back of a baggage pony that lay shot in the pass; and then, scraping away the snow, pitched it for their use.

Therein, Mabel, Rose, and seven other ladies passed the night, nestling close together on a xummul, or coarse native blanket, with the skirts of their riding habits wrapped about their feet for warmth.

Audley Trevelyan, General Trecarrel, and other mounted officers kept beside their horses for the same purpose; and muffled in their poshteens and blankets, Waller and Denzil lay to leeward of the ladies' tent as a shelter from the biting wind.

So passed the remainder of the morning.

When day began to dawn and the cold light stole down the mountains upon that melancholy bivouac, it was found that the Shah's 6th Regiment, six hundred strong, had gone off in the dark, deserting to the enemy with all their arms; but there was another circumstance which created greater alarm still among the Europeans.

Rose Trecarrel was missing, and no trace of her could be found.

CHAPTER XVIII.

SPIRITED AWAY!

All unaware of the evil tidings that were awaiting him, Denzil, stiff and well-nigh frozen, aching in every limb, staggered like a tipsy man to his feet, so sore and cramped were every joint and limb. As the dawn came slowly in, he gazed around him. Waller was already awake, and had been to look after his men. He proffered his cigar-case, saying:

"Have a weed, Devereaux—it's all the breakfast you are likely to get. We are as ill off here as Mother Hubbard's ill-used cur."

"Are the ladies stirring yet?" asked Denzil with chattering teeth.

"No—and Lady Sale has not had the bullet extracted from her arm yet."

Once or twice during the dark hours that were passed, a little hand cased in lavender kid and drawn from a warm fur-lined riding gauntlet, had come out from under the wall of the tent, and Waller's lips had touched it, for it was Mabel's, and gloved though it was, the touch of that little hand, especially under circumstances so terrible, made big Bob Waller's honest heart to vibrate with emotion. Once Rose, in her old spirit of waggery, had put out her hand in the same way and laughed when Waller, who was just dosing off to sleep in the wretched cold without, kissed it with great empressement, for she too wore pale lavender kids under her riding gloves.

"Look round, Waller," said Denzil, as he lit the cigar; "did you ever behold such a scene?"

"Never—and hope never to see such again!"

The lofty mountains and impending rocks that overhung the Pass, and that fatal route back to the hills of Siah Sung, being covered with snow, looked singularly close and nigh. The sky was clear now; and far as the eye could reach the way was studded by the dead bodies of human beings, camels, horses, baggage yaboos, artillery bullocks, cannon and waggons, drums, weapons and abandoned dhoolies, the inmates of which might be either living or dead; the latter most probably, for everything there lay half buried in the white winding-sheet of winter, with the black vultures settling in flights over them.

In the immediate vicinity of where Denzil stood, many men who in the night had perished of cold and exhaustion lay frozen hard and firmly to the earth, with their muskets beside them. The corpses of the Hindoos and dusky Bengal sepoys seemed like pale Venetian bronze in the frosty air. In the eyes of the survivors, by over tension of the nerves, and the fierce wild excitement they had undergone for some time past, but more particularly during the preceding day and night, a keen and unearthly glare or glitter was visible. Each was aware of this hunted-expression as he looked in the worn face of his comrade. General Trecarrel seemed to be sorely changed by the sharp anxiety he suffered for his daughters' safety. Thus the usually bluff and florid looking old soldier had become pale, wan and haggard in face, and wild and defiant in eye, like the rest.

Sergeant Treherne, a powerful and hardy Cornishman, had tumbled a dead Hindoo out of a wooden litter, and breaking it to pieces, made with them a fire near the tent of the ladies, for whom, with all a campaigner's readiness, he was quickly preparing some hot coffee in a camp-kettle, while the old General, his countryman, sought to warm himself by the blaze, when the voice of Mabel startled all who were near, as she hurried from the tent, exclaiming,

"Papa—papa—where is Rose—is not she with you?"

Denzil started forward, but paused, for at the same instant Audley Trevelyan, who had been fraternally sharing some dhal (or split-peas) with his horse, and of whose interference he felt nervously jealous, sprang towards Mabel enquiringly. General Trecarrel stared at her with an air of utter bewilderment, as he had not seen Rose since the tent was pitched for the use of her and others on the troops halting, when she came as usual to be kissed by him before retiring, just as she had been wont to do, ever since childhood. Then he said hoarsely:

"Speak at once, Mabel—what has happened—speak?"

But Mabel could only clasp her hands. She thought Rose had been with him, and terror now tied her tongue; she dared not speak or question him, for "any suspense is better than some certainties;" and one fact was here certain and palpable; that Rose had left the tent unseen, and none knew why, wherefore or with whom!

When so many were perishing hourly by the most terrible deaths, we are shocked to admit that, such is the selfishness of human nature, the fate of one girl, even though a pure European, did not create much excitement for any length of time, save among those more immediately interested in it; and as the retreat was to recommence in an hour, there was not much time for the unrefreshed and starving troops investigating it. Moreover, the rear-guard of yesterday was to be the advanced one of to-day, as the army, if that disorganised multitude could so be called, was to move off in inverted order—the left in front.

Generosity, chivalry, and humanity, inspired Audley Trevelyan like many other officers to be up and doing something; they scarcely knew what. Denzil felt heart-wrung and stupefied, while Waller, in addition to his own emotions, was alarmed for the effect this calamitous event might have on Mabel; but General Trecarrel, together with the horror inspired by great anxiety and love, felt an ardour of intense hatred against the Afghans who had reft from him his youngest born; she, who from childhood had been his pet, and his stricken heart seemed full of unuttered prayers for her.

The entire camp was speedily searched; not a trace could be found of the lost one. She could neither have gone nor been taken to the front, as the snow lay there pure as it had fallen, untrodden and unsullied by footsteps. To the rear then only could she be looked for. Such was the hasty report made to the unhappy father by brigadier Shelton, Audley, and other officers who crowded about him.

The ladies were full of compassion and a terror that was not quite unselfish. What had happened? If she had vanished thus mysteriously, whose fate might be next? They trembled in the frosty morning wind as they gazed at each other; but Mabel's beautiful face, by the terrible and haggard misery of its expression, inspired them all with sympathy, and they grouped about her like a covey of frightened doves.

Like Denzil, she felt as if half her life—half herself, had suddenly passed away. A looker-on might have thought that the death-warrant of all had been written in an instant, for Denzil, Waller, Audley, Mabel, and poor General Trecarrel stared at each other in blank horror and amazement.

Death by the sword, the lance, and bullet; death by cold, starvation, fire, sack, slaughter, and every horror incident to such a retreat, had been, and were even now, close around them; but what unthought-of personal calamity was this? Breathlessly, and almost void of all power of volition, father and child gazed at each other. Their eyes seemed to say "Where is my daughter?" "Where is my sister?" But who was to explain this terrible mystery?

Nine ladies, we have said, had crowded together in that small tent, sleeping closely side by side for warmth; and the eight remaining admitted that they had slept soundly in the heavy slumber that comes of intense weariness and keen anxiety. Denzil, in his half-dreamy doze outside the tent, had been conscious of soldiers hovering near it, but thought they were simply seeking for food or fuel.

Happy, thoughtless, heedless Rose, with all her flirting and pretty coquettish ways—where was she now? Dead, butchered, or dying in misery amid the snow, or a captive; and, if so, in whose hands? A captive kept for worse than death, too probably! It was an episode that was maddening to her sister; to her old father, who loved her so tenderly; to Denzil, who doted on her shadow, and whose heart was full of the memory of that happy day by the Lake of Istaliff; to Waller; and all who had known and liked her, or laughed and danced with her in the happy time that was past.

"Oh, God!" murmured the poor General, half audibly, as he raised his eyes and tremulous hands upwards; "give my child back to me, or take me to her! Lord, Lord, let me not go mad!" he added piteously. "To find her lying dead would be better than to be thus ignorant of her fate—of her sufferings—of her end!"

Life seemed to die out of his heart; yet he breathed and lived, and had speech and hearing left.

"Those scoundrels who levanted in the dark, the Shah's Sixth, have something to do with this," said Burgoyne; "they furnished the chain of sentinels towards the rear."

"Right," exclaimed the General hoarsely, "and in the rear must she be sought."

"The enemy are already in motion and in sight," said Brigadier Shelton, who was examining the distant portion of the Pass through his field-glass.

"I care not if all Afghanistan was there," said Trecarrel, mounting; "come with me, Trevelyan! Ladies, I entreat you to look to Mabel while I go in search of my lost one."

"Papa, papa," implored Mabel, "don't leave me."

"You are safe for the time," he replied, checking his horse for an instant; "but I must go in search of my lost darling—to find her, or to die."

And now the old man rode wildly to the rear, followed by Audley, who had to ride with caution among the frozen dead and other debris, as the horses were ill-roughed, the Nalbunds, or native farriers, having all deserted.

"Captain Waller," cried Brigadier Shelton, "this is mere madness; Trecarrel and Trevelyan are throwing their lives away, for the Afghan skirmishers will soon be close at hand! Take your Company to the rear in extended order, and keep the rascals in check if you can. A Ressallah of the 5th Cavalry will support you if necessary."

"Very good, sir," replied Waller, mechanically and coolly, as if on parade, lowering his drawn sword in salute, and obeying with alacrity, in the desire and hope to overtake and protect the father of his Mabel. "Company, forward, double quick;" and forward his men went briskly, with their arms at the trail, and in line, till clear of the bivouac, when he extended them from the centre, and they loaded while advancing.

In active and dangerous military duty like this, there is always some relief from mental torture. A man in grief may sit at his desk, toil with the spade, the shuttle, or the hammer, enduring a sickness of the heart that nothing can allay, and time alone may cure; but in the fierce excitement of mortal strife, the ills of life seem lessened, and a great sorrow may be half forgotten. Hence, to grapple with the enemy, and especially such an enemy as those Afghans, was as a balm to the excited hearts of Denzil and Waller, and forth they went with a will over ground that was singularly repulsive and horrible in aspect. In his keen sense of the terrible event of last night, the former forgot even his jealousy of Audley; they could have but one common cause now—vengeance on the abductors.

Corpses lay thick everywhere, and half covered by the snow.

How terrible seemed the last rest of all those dead people, who, since only yesterday, had learned the great secret of Time and Eternity, and more that mere mortal can never know; their jaws relaxed; their eyes, unclosed by friendly or loving hands, were staring stonily and sightlessly to Heaven, as they slept the sleep from which the thunder of all the cannon in the world would never waken them. The ashes of the Christian would receive no Christian burial; and those of the Hindoo would never mingle with the waters of the Jumna, or his holier river, the Ganges. For the remains of all would ere long become the prey of the wolf and hyæna, and already the vultures were there in sable flights, settling over all the fallen.

In some places under the soldiers' feet, the snow was crimsoned by large patches of frozen blood.

A long line of abandoned dhooleys, full of women, children, and wounded men, were passed. All the occupants of these were dead; and to their ghastly banquet thereon, the scared vultures returned with angry croak and flapping wings, when Waller's men went further from them.

On a little knoll the General and Audley Trevelyan were overtaken. They had reined up their horses, and were looking about them sadly and hopelessly, for no trace of the lost one could be discerned; but the shouts of some exulting Afghans were borne towards them on the morning wind.

A body of cavalry, divided into two parties, were coming along the steep rocks of the Pass on both sides, for the mountain horses of that wild region can climb like cats or goats. A green silk banner floated from a glittering lance, announcing that they formed the Resallah, or troop of Amen Oollah Khan; and each horseman had a juzailchee, or rifleman, mounted, en croupe, behind him, after the fashion of the French Voltigeurs.

These they dropped fresh, unwearied, and ready for action; and the firing began at once from behind the rocks or stones, over which they discharged their long barrelled rifles in perfect security.

The Afghans are excellent skirmishers, and their native juzails carry much farther than our regulation muskets; thus, before Waller's men could return their fire, one of his corporals uttered a yell of agony, bounded a yard from the ground, and then fell flat on his face, dead. A bullet had pierced a mortal part.

"Close up—close up, forward," cried Waller, leading them on, sword in hand; "those devils have got our range exactly now."

While he spoke the bullets were sowing thick the snow about General Trecarrel and Audley, who, being mounted men, were prominent figures. Meanwhile the horsemen had disappeared; but the wily Amen Oollah was merely making a detour to turn the flank of a group of pines that grew upon the steep slope, intending thereby to get into the rear of Waller's skirmishers and cut them off.

"Get under cover, lads, as best you may!" cried he, as his bugler sounded to "commence firing;" and with a dark, stern, and desperate expression in their hungry faces, his soldiers knelt behind rocks and stones, dead horses and camels, dhooleys and abandoned baggage-boxes, and proceeded to return the fire of the Afghans (about a hundred in number), who were taking quiet pot-shots at any head that appeared above the snow-clad rocks, behind which they were lurking.

Now and then a fiend-like yell, and pair of brown booted feet, or swarthy dark hands appearing wildly in the air, announced when an English bullet found its billet in a Mussulman body; and then the soldiers smiled grimly to each other, as they thought "there is one the less in the world, at all events."

This serious musketry practice, and the wailing of women and children, were the only morning reveillé in that melancholy halting place on the bank of the Loghur.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SKIRMISH.

Gratitude to General Trecarrel, who had been kind to his dead mother, to Sybil, and ever so to himself, with a natural regard for the old soldier as the father of Rose, made Denzil linger near him, and beseech him to retire and not to expose his life needlessly. Absorbed in his great grief the General made no reply; with his face pale, his eyes bloodshot, and his teeth set, he sat on horseback and watched the turns of the skirmish.

The juzailchees fired with deadly aim as they levelled their long weapons over rests, or the rocks behind which they were crouching; thus some ten or twelve of Waller's skirmishers had fallen; of these five were dead, and others were creeping wounded to the halting-place, which some of them were not destined to reach, as they died of exhaustion, loss of blood, or another bullet by the way.

His company continued to advance steadily by front and rear-rank files alternately, each man darting forward and getting under the cover of some rock or bedana (as the wild mulberry bushes are named), till they were all within half musket shot of the foe. The reports of the firing were reverberated among the snow-clad cliffs, tossed from peak to peak, and so often repeated, that it seemed as if four times the number of men were engaged; but though each soldier had forty rounds of ammunition when leaving the Cantonments, cartridges were failing already, for their stiffened and frost-bitten fingers dropped more than they discharged, so that the living had soon to supply themselves from the pouches of the dead.

Suddenly a cry of pain escaped General Trecarrel, and he fell heavily from his horse, which swerved madly round, and fled into the Pass, with saddle reversed and bridle trailing. An exclamation of mingled rage and commiseration left the lips of Waller, who glanced back hastily in the humane hope that Mabel did not see this calamity, of which, however, she was so soon to hear.

A ball had pierced her father's body, going fairly through the chest and back, and he was dying in mortal agony, with the blood welling from his mouth and nostrils.

"Rose—Rose and—Mabel!" he muttered, as he slowly lifted his empty arms upward in the air, and then turning fairly round with his face to the snow, amid which his white hair mingled, he expired.

The whole catastrophe occurred in less time than is taken to write of it.

"How shall I break this fresh sorrow to poor Mabel!" said Waller, in a low voice, through his clenched teeth; but he had little time for reflection now, as a shout on the right flank announced the approaching Horse of Amen Oollah Khan, as they swept tumultuously round the pine wood, and came on at a hand-gallop, down ground that was frightfully steep.

"Rally—close to the centre—form company square!" cried Waller, holding his sword aloft. He looked to the rear; the promised support from the 5th Cavalry was not to be seen; but he heard a bugle in the camp sounding the "retire;" thus recalling his skirmishers, a most necessary measure, as a body of more than six hundred Horse, led, as it eventually proved, by Ackbar Khan in person, were now advancing through the Pass.

Waller's company formed a rallying square, and began to retire, still firing, however, while Denzil, assisted by Sergeant Treherne, endeavoured to bring off the body of General Trecarrel, by placing it across the horse of Audley, who had dismounted for that purpose. This caused a delay which proved fatal, as it separated them from their party. Twice the poor corpse slipped from the saddle, and they were in the act of replacing it for a third, time when, with a yell of,

"Shookr-Joor vestie!" (Praise be to God) four Afghan horsemen, riding far in advance of their comrades, were down upon them.

One of these, a gigantic fellow, wearing a flaming yellow head-dress, and a scarlet chogah or cloak, struck off Audley's cocked hat, and grasping him viciously by the hair, dragged his head close to the saddle-lap, intending to cut it off by a slash of his long knife. Audley ran his sword into the bowels of this barbarian's horse. It reared furiously, and threw the rider, whose hold never relaxed, for he and Audley rolled over each other in close and deadly grapple, till Denzil passed his sword through the quivering body of the Afghan—a task which he had to repeat twice, as such fellows are hard to kill, ere he could release and save his kinsman.

Sergeant Treherne shot the second and bayoneted the third, a thrust from whose lance he narrowly escaped; but the fourth, whom a stray shot from the still retiring square had dismounted and wounded in the sword-arm, cried imploringly on his knees,

"Aman! aman!" (quarter—quarter), so Denzil arrested the charged bayonet of Treherne, which in another moment would have pinned him to the earth.

"Retire—retire, I command you both," cried Waller, whose voice was distant now.

"Thank heaven, Audley Trevelyan, I have repaid Sybil's debt to you—we are quits at last," was Denzil's thought, and he was turning away to hasten after the Company, for not a moment could be lost now, if he wished to save his own life, when suddenly he received a dreadful blow on the back part of the head—he heard the explosion of a pistol—the light went out of his eyes, or a darkness seemed to descend upon him; he fell forward on the snow with outspread hands, and remembered no more.

The wretch whose life he had just spared, had felled him to the earth by a stroke from a ponderous iron-butted pistol, and then discharged it at Audley, without effect, however, as the ball missed its object.

Treherne, who by this time had reloaded, shot the Afghan through the head, and then he and Audley Trevelyan had to run for their lives, as by this time the six Ressallahs of advancing Horse were close at hand, and cries of "Ullah ul Alla" loaded the frosty air.

"Poor Devereaux—gone with the rest!" exclaimed Polwhele.

"Yes," said Waller, "how many a poor fellow, gayer and happier than he apparently was, goes into action, confidently believing the bullet is not yet cast that shall floor him, and is shot for all that."

"Well—it may be our turn next, sir," said Sergeant Treherne, philosophically.

Fain would Waller and the rest have made a rally to bring him off dead or alive, at the bayonet's point, together with the body of Trecarrel; but the bugles of the rear-guard—first two, then four at once—were sounding, as if angrily, the order to retire so, to "retire" he was compelled, or sacrifice perhaps his whole Company; and with tears in his eyes, where tears had not been since he was a child, in a white pinafore, at school, he drew off the survivors of the futile skirmish, and rejoined his brigade.

"Where is Papa?" asked an agitated voice. It was Mabel who addressed him, her face whiter, if possible, than ever.

Waller pointed with his sword towards the Pass and mournfully shook his head.

"Wounded?"

"Oh, my darling—killed, and poor young Devereaux, too, I greatly fear."

Mabel heard him as if turned to stone. Rose gone, and now her father too! Poor Denzil she never thought of, for great grief is selfish at times.

"Dearest Mabel," said Waller, "I do not ask you 'to compose yourself,' as people always say in such cases; I am a bad comforter perhaps—can't quote Scripture and all that sort of thing. The poor old man had not many years before him any way, and I can only implore you to submit to the will of God."

But she could only weep upon his breast, heedless of those around them.

"Where was he struck?" she asked, in a choking voice.

"I don't know," replied Waller, looking down.

"Did he die easily?"

"Yes."

Neither of these answers was true: but he knew that details would only harrow her feelings the more.

So the old General was left unburied in the Pass, and Mabel was smoothing caressingly with her fingers and then treasuring in her bosom, a thin lock of his silver hair, which Audley had cut for her, and which recalled the dead so powerfully in presence, as it were, that her heart seemed to brim with tears. There was no relic left of him now save this; unless we add a pair of his pipeclayed gloves, which he had given her to draw over her own for warmth, and somehow, they too seemed to embody his presence, and to bring before her by their very shape, the kind old hands that never tired of caressing her and Rose from infancy—the hands of him who was left without a grave in yonder fatal place, for the army was again in full retreat, and leaving, even as it left all yesterday, its dead and dying on every hand.

Audley thought with intense compassion of Sybil, whose previous bereavement he had learned from Waller; and all unused to grief, he rode among the Staff in a state of utter bewilderment, considering whether he should write her, and if so, in what terms he was to tell her of her loss.

For a time Mabel clung to Waller's neck, in her great despair of mind, like one in dreadful bodily agony. She cared not for onlookers; for the men of the 44th, or the sepoys, with their black glossy wondering eyes.

"Oh, Waller; I have no friend in the world now—no friend but you!" said she, in a strange and weak voice, as she laid her face, thinned and paled by grief and suffering, on his breast.

Waller's bright blue eyes were dry now; but in their expression tenderness alternated with something akin to ferocity, for all this suffering, and all those deaths that were occurring hourly, were the result of Afghan treachery; and his fair English face seemed to darken as he looked back to where Denzil, the General, and so many more were lying, and the interment of whom was impossible. The enemy was coming on, the bugles were sounding for the advance—if a retrograde movement can be called so—and already the whole force was en route towards Khoord Cabul.

Mabel was soon once more on horseback, and rode with the rest of the ladies, many of whom were widows now, and could share their grief with her.

Her heart had

"Fallen too low for special fear;"

to her acute mental misery a kind of apathetic stupor followed, and she was in that state as the Retreat again began.

CHAPTER XX.

IN THE KHYBER PASS.

We almost shrink from the task of telling the story of that awful retreat, in which the Rider on the Pale Horse followed the steps of our troops, so closely, so terribly, and in such ghastly triumph!

All the plans of Ackbar Khan had been long prearranged, and among those, as an intercepted despatch from him to a Ghilzie chief announced, was nothing less than a Holy War, for he adjured all, in the name of the Prophet, "to rise against the infidels, whose chief," he adds, "I have slain with my own hand at Cabul, even, as I trust, in like manner to slay the chief of the Feringhees, Sale, in Jellalabad."

The six hundred Horse that had been seen advancing, were met by two of our officers, Captain Skinner, of the 61st Native Infantry, and Lieutenant Burgoyne, who bore a flag of truce. They demanded what their intentions were; and the fierce Ackbar who rode at their head, muffled in a robe of the costliest furs, played with the lock of a pistol, and seemed with difficulty to restrain himself from using it. However, he replied,

"I have come on the part of the great chiefs of Afghanistan, to escort you as far as Jellalabad; but we demand hostages that you shall march no further on the way than Tezeen, ere Sale Sahib evacuates the city, wherein he has no right to be."

"Wherefore hostages, Khan?" asked Captain Skinner.

"Lest when you effect a junction, you may all come back to Cabul. The lives of the hostages should answer for this, and I take yours in the meantime, as an earnest thereof!"

And as he spoke, he drew his pistol, and deliberately shot poor Skinner through the head; so Burgoyne, full of rage and pity, returned with the message alone.

Notwithstanding this new crime, other interviews took place, and ultimately Major Pottinger and two other officers were given up as hostages; but all this pretended diplomacy was merely a trick on the part of Ackbar to cause delay, until he got the lower portion of the Khyber Pass manned completely by the armed tribes, and even barricaded by felled trees against our retreat, for the force was too slender now to admit of having skirmishes or scouting parties moving along the summits of the cliffs, collaterally with the retiring column.

"Yield who may," was the cry of Waller and many others, "we at least, as Englishmen, as British soldiers, shall fight our way through the passes with courage, discipline, and the fury of despair. All cannot perish; come on, lads—forward!"

"Forward—steady, Jack Sepoy!" the Queen's troops would call to those of the East India Company.

But it was now urged by the Sirdir, that the wild hordes in possession of the passes, and over whom he pretended to have no control, would destroy all the women and children; and, fearing that such a calamity could only be escaped by some diplomacy and an affectation of trust in Ackbar, General Elphinstone, then at the point of death, and therefore heedless what fate was in store for him, gave himself up as a hostage, together with most of the principal officers, the whole of the ladies, children, and wounded, who were immediately conveyed back to Cabul; and the doomed army once more resumed its march, while famine and disease added to the horror of the occasion; "but when men destroy each other without pity, why should not Death come and lend them a hand?"

The reader may imagine the emotions of Waller, of the officers, and other Europeans, when they saw their wives and daughters, or those they loved as well, separated from them, to become the hostages for a certain military movement, the guests, the captives—it might too probably be the victims—of a barbarian prince. Many may yet remember the fear, shame, and compassion this event, the sequel to a series of blunders, excited at home, when tidings came of their abandonment, and the fate of our troops, whose terrible career we have scarcely the heart to follow.

The parting of Mabel and Waller was bitter, though in her soul the bitterness of death itself seemed past, and her tears were such as seem to come from the heart; but others as well as she were parting from their dearest, and there is a strange communion in grief.

Ackbar conveyed his prizes back to the city, treating them with apparent kindness, for he considered white women nearly as valuable as the horses of the Usbec Tartars; but by that time nearly all the babes at the breast and the little toddling things that made many a father proud and mother happy, had perished, even as the strong man perished, for in some places the snow was so deep, that soldiers disappeared bodily into it, and were never, never seen again.

Ackbar probably meant to keep them all till richly ransomed, for he was overheard to say to Amen Oollah Khan, in his hypocritical way,—

"What saith the Koran? 'Unto such of your slaves as desire a written instrument, allowing them to redeem themselves, on paying a certain sum, write one, if ye know good in them, and give them of the riches of God, which he hath given you.'"

"But, by the soul of him who wrote these words," replied Amen Oollah, "I would not give up that damsel with the red, golden hair for less than a crore of rupees."

As a crore is ten lacs of rupees, a high value seemed to be set on poor Mabel Trecarrel, who was here indicated.

In the deep shadowy gorges of those winding passes, through which the route of the troops lay for miles, the impending cliffs were covered by clouds of yellow-turbaned Khyberees and Ghilzies, who poured down upon them a remorseless and incessant fire of musketry, and in some places from caverns which were full of juzailchees. In others they daringly rushed in bands into the ranks of the weary and half-famished soldiers, whose ammunition was nearly expended, and made there a terrible use of their swords and long daggers; and thus, at a place called the Jungle Tarechee, or Dark Pass, the whole of the 54th Native Infantry were destroyed. There, too, fell Graham and Ravelstoke.

The dead were always stripped, and then mutilated, or terribly gashed with wounds.

"Death to the infidel dogs—death! death!" were the incessant cries by which these fanatics inspired each other.

"What says the Koran?" cried one whose camise was literally steeped in blood; "'it is unlawful to plunder the living,' but there is no prohibition about the dead; so death to them all!"

The fugitives were so wedged en masse in the narrow way, that every shot told fearfully. All along that route, many a wounded soldier, as he fell behind, gave to some favourite comrade the last words that he, poor Bob, or Bill, or Jack, was never fated to carry home; many a dying officer gave his papers, ring, or locket to the friend who, in a few minutes later, was also stretched on the ensanguined snow.

At one brief halt a few ponies were killed and devoured raw!

All hope was dead now in every heart, yet on they struggled—on, and on—till a place called Jugdulluck was reached, and then in all the sullenness of fury and despair, the wretched survivors, Horse, Foot, and Artillerymen, resolved to make a resolute stand. Cheering wildly, as if to welcome death and the foe together, the poor fellows stood shoulder to shoulder, many bleeding with undressed wounds, all breathless and flushed, their eyes gleaming, their once comely English faces distorted by hate and bitterness.

In sheets of lead the heavy juzail balls tore through them on every hand, and they fell faster than ever. Her Majesty's 44th Regiment was now reduced to two hundred men, and every man of the two hundred perished where he stood. But this bravery enabled some of the other corps to proceed farther, and the last final stand was made by those unhappy men on the morning of the 13th January, on the knoll of Gundamuck, when twenty officers, sixty soldiers, and three hundred camp-followers alone survived.

Polwhele was the first who fell here; two balls pierced his chest; and there, too, perished all that remained of Waller's Company. If the fire slackened a moment, the clash of knife and bayonet was heard, with many a yell and groan.

"Dear Bob," cried Polwhele to Waller, as he lay choking in blood, "if you cannot carry me out of the field, take my sword and this ring for my—my poor mother."

But Waller could do neither, for over Polwhele's body there thickly fell a heap of killed and wounded.

After his ammunition was expended, Sergeant Treherne, whom rage and desperation inspired with a fury resembling madness, laid wildly about him, and with the heel of his musket dashed out the brains of more than one tall Afghan. This stalwart son of the Mines had come of a race that in their time had been greater men than miners in Cornwall—Huelwers, who were rulers then in the land before, perhaps, a stone of Windsor or Westminster had been laid; and now he stood like a hero on that fatal knoll of Gundamuck, beating down the foe with the butt-end of his clubbed weapon, till he fell, riddled with bullets, upon the corpses of his comrades.

Seeing all lost, Waller, his heart swollen almost to bursting, had now to seek his own safety. Concealed by the smoke and some wild pistachio trees, he found shelter in a cavern, though fearing that traces of his footsteps in the snow might lead to his discovery, and there he lay on the cold rocky floor, more dead than alive with excess of emotion and all he had undergone, panting, feeble, and well nigh breathless.

He had only his sword now, and even if he escaped the Afghans, wolves, bears, or hyænas—the mountains teemed with all of them—might come upon him in the night.

Being well mounted, Audley Trevelyan and two medical officers effected their escape, but were closely pursued by Amen Oollah Khan, and compelled to separate. One was overtaken and slain within four miles of Jellalabad. Audley's horse was shot under him, and he concealed himself till nightfall in a nullah or ravine.*

* At Gundamuck "the enemy rushed in with drawn knives, and with the exception of two officers and four men, the whole of this doomed band fell victims to the sanguinary mob."—Memorials of Afghanistan, Calcutta, 1843.

Long prior to this event, Colonel Dennie, of the 13th, made a curiously prophetic speech. "His words were, 'you'll see that not a soul will escape from Cabul except one man, and he will come to tell us that the rest are destroyed."—Sale's Brigade.

Ackbar Khan is said to have uttered a similar prediction.

The despatches record that of all the sixteen thousand five hundred who marched from the Cantonments of Cabul, ninety miles distant, Dr. Brydone, a Scottish medical officer of the Shah's service, bleeding, faint, covered with wounds, and carrying a broken sword in his hand, alone reached the city of Sir Robert Sale's garrison; but Trevelyan came in four hours after, to confirm his terrible tidings of the total destruction of our army and all its followers, for all who were not slain were made slaves by the captors.

CHAPTER XXI.

WALLER'S ADVENTURES.

"Run to earth at last!" groaned Bob Waller, whose subsequent perils were so varied and remarkable that they alone, if fully detailed, might fill a volume.

In that cavern or fissure, one of the many which abound in the rocks there, he lay the whole day, untraced and undiscovered, for the Afghans, after having stripped and mutilated in their usual fashion, the dead on the snow-covered knoll, had retired. He knew that he was only sixteen miles from that bourne they had all hoped to reach—Sale's little garrison in Jellalabad, and that if he ever attained it at all, the attempt must be made in the night. He was without a guide; he knew not the way, and his dress and complexion would render him to every shepherd, wayfarer, and marauding horseman, apparent, as a Feringhee and an enemy.

The whole affair, the retreat, and the result of it, seems to be what a French writer describes as "one of those especial visitations of Fate, which draw on the devoted to their ruin, and which it is impossible for virtue to resist, or human wisdom to foresee."

After seven days and nights of incessant fighting; after the perpetual ringing of musketry, the yells of the Afghans, the varied cries of those who perished in agony under their hands; after all the truly infernal uproar and mad excitement in those dark and narrow Passes, the unbroken silence around him now, seemed intense and oppressive. He could almost imagine that he heard it; stirred though it was only by the low hum of insect life among the withered leaves and coss, or wild mountain grass, that lay drifted by the wind in heaps within the cave, and on which he lay so sad and weary.

"Now," thought he, after some hours had passed, "now that this horrible row is all over, I'll have a quiet weed—smoke a peaceful calumet of Cavendish;" and he drew the materials therefor from the pocket of his poshteen.

Waller had always been solicitous about the colouring of that same calumet, as he styled his meerschaum pipe, which, by the bye, had been a gift from his friend Polwhele—poor Jack Polwhele—who was lying under that ghastly pile of dead on the knoll, where his jovial soul had ebbed through his death-wound, and where in his kind heart, and on his pallid lips, as he breathed his last, his mother's name had mingled with that of his God;—and so, as Waller smoked amid the silence and gloom of the wintry eve, tears rolled over his cheek—the bitter tears of a brave man's rage and grief.

This was not war but carnage!

To Waller it seemed as if a gory curtain had fallen between him and all his past life. Where were now his companions of the parade, the mess, and the race-course? Where the brave rank and file, that had stood by him shoulder to shoulder, and every man of whom deemed Captain Waller a friend, as much as an officer? Where were the faces and voices of all he had known and loved? As he lay there alone in cold and darkness, his emotions were somewhat akin to those described as being felt by the last man, when the whitening skeletons of nations were around him, and when all the human world had—himself excepted—passed away.

"Mabel and Rose—my own Mabel, where is she?" he muttered again and again.

Love left his heart with her; she was, like others, a hostage—a thing unheard of in modern wars;—a prisoner—too probably a victim! In such terrible hands, what worse fate could she have? She had been diplomatically torn from him, by a treaty that proved futile, and which cast dishonour on our arms. Duty had compelled him to march with his men; for the stern duty of the soldier had to rise superior to the soft affection of the lover, and now he was there alone, with the memory of her last tearful kiss lingering on his lips.

"My beautiful darling—my loved, my lost Mabel!" murmured the usually matter-of-fact Waller; "oh, why were you reft from me? God," he added, looking up imploringly in the gathering gloom, "shall we ever meet again?"

He knew that no fear of future vengeance would deter the Afghans from committing any outrage on their captives. In their utter ignorance of the locality, the nature, and vast resources of Britain, they can form no correct idea of her power by sea or land. They vaguely know all Europe by the general term of Feringhistan, or the Country of the Franks; and that ships from there come to Bombay and Bassora (the Bassora of Sindbad the Sailor), to Madras, and Calcutta; and that a Queen rules one portion of it—a dreary island somewhere in the sea; and their learned Moollahs were wont to assert, that her red soldiers, by their close resemblance to each other, the extreme similarity of their uniform and motions, must all be the sons of one mother.

An intense thirst, which successive handfuls of snow failed to allay, hunger, and extreme cold from lying so long in that dark den in such a season, made Waller hail the descending night, and with sombre satisfaction he quitted his lurking place, to seek on foot the road to Jellalabad.

"In England," thought he, "the Poor Law guardians have studied at times to discover upon how little mankind can be kept alive; and there have been learned philosophers who declared it possible for people to exist without food at all! By Jove, I wish they had been on this retreat from Cabul, and all their problems would soon have been solved."

He heard now the voices of the jackals revelling over their ghastly meal on the hill of Gundamuck, and shudderingly he turned away in the opposite direction. Snow covered all the country; but the footsteps and horse tracks of those who had pursued Doctor Brydone were, for a time, a sufficient indication of the route he was to follow. He had lost his shako in the late conflict, but the loonghee of a dead Afghan supplied its place.

The night was clear; the deep blue sky was full of brilliant stars; around him the stupendous mountains of the Khyber range towered on either side of the way in silence and solemnity, that proved something awful to the then oppressed mind of the poor fugitive, who wished from his soul that he had been as dark in complexion and as black of eye as his friend Polwhele; for Waller's face and hair were of the thorough Saxon type, and hence any attempt to pass himself off as a fair-visaged Oriental was impossible, for swarthy indeed is the fairest of them. He had never possessed such a hand-book as "Afghani before breakfast," or "without a master," if such a thing ever existed; but he had contrived to pick up enough of the strange polyglot medley forming the language of the natives, to have aided any disguise, could he have found one.

Voices and the clatter of hoofs, the latter partially deadened by the snow, fell on his ear, before he had proceeded a mile; and, on the whiteness that stretched in distance far away before him, appeared the dark figures of a group of mounted men approaching rapidly.

Near the roadside there stood, and doubtless still stands, a little musjid, or temple, and over its tiny dome one giant poplar towered skyward, like a dark gothic spire. The strangers might halt and pray there, profuse piety being an element in the Afghan character; but it was equally probable they might not; so, as it was his only hope of concealment, he hastened to avail himself of it—but too late; he was already observed, and a series of wild shouts made his heart sicken, as the horsemen came galloping up, unslinging from their backs their long juzails as they advanced.