nother the British helmets went down, and the
wild shouts of the Afghans rose triumphantly above them.

At length Atherton saw a tall figure, bareheaded and black with smoke,
spring upon a gun-carriage, and with the butt end of a carbine fell two
or three of the enemy who scrambled up to dislodge him.

Atherton knew that form among a thousand, and he knew too that Forrester
was making his last stand.

"Cheer, men, and come on!" cried he to his men, rising in his stirrups
and leading the shout.

The head of the column, just then emerging from the gorge, heard that
shout, and answered it with a bugle flourish, as they fixed bayonets and
rushed forward to charge. At the same moment, a cheer and the boom of a
gun on the left proclaimed that the other half of the column had at that
moment reached the plain, and were also bearing down on the enemy's
flank.

But Atherton saw and heeded nothing but that tall heroic figure on the
carriage. At the first sound of the troopers' shout Forrester had
turned his head, smiling, and raised his carbine aloft, as though to
wave answer to the cheer. So he stood for a moment. Then he reeled and
fell back upon the gun he had saved.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

AN OFFICIAL REPORT.

Scarfe, on the return of the skating party to Wildtree, found himself
the hero of the hour. Whether the risk he ran in rescuing his old
schoolfellow from his icy bath had been great or small, it had resulted
in saving Jeffreys' life, and that was quite sufficient to make a hero
of him. Percy, easily impressed by the daring of any one else, and
quite overlooking his own share in the rescue, was loud in his praises.

"How jolly proud you must feel!" said he. "I know I should if I'd saved
a fellow's life. That's never my luck!"

"You lent a hand," said Scarfe, with the complacency of one who can
afford to be modest.

And, to do Scarfe justice, until he heard himself credited with the
lion's share of the rescue, he had been a little doubtful in his own
mind as to how much of it he might justly claim.

"Oh," said Percy, "a lot I did! You might as well say Raby lent a hand
by lending Jeff her shawl."

"I was the cause of it all," said Raby. "But you forget dear old
Julius; I'm sure he lent a hand."

"The dog was rather in the way than otherwise," said Scarfe; "dogs
always are on the ice."

Jeffreys, as he walked silently beside them, could afford to smile at
this last remark. But in other respec