e enemy, and it was to meet them that the
Gurkhas had doubled so hastily. There was much enemy. There would be
amusement. The little men hitched their _kukris_ well to hand, and
gaped expectantly at their officers as terriers grin ere the stone is
cast for them to fetch. The Gurkhas' ground sloped downward to the
valley, and they enjoyed a fair view of the proceedings. They sat upon
the boulders to watch, for their officers were not going to waste
their wind in assisting to repulse a Ghazi rush more than half a mile
away. Let the white men look to their own front.

'Hi! yi!' said the Subadar-Major, who was sweating profusely. 'Dam
fools yonder, stand close-order! This is no time for close-order, it
is the time for volleys. Ugh!'

Horrified, amused, and indignant, the Gurkhas beheld the retirement of
the Fore and Aft with a running chorus of oaths and commentaries.

'They run! The white men run! Colonel Sahib, may _we_ also do a little
running?' murmured Runbir Thappa, the Senior Jemadar.

But the Colonel would have none of it. 'Let the beggars be cut up a
little,' said he wrathfully. ''Serves 'em right. They'll be prodded
into facing round in a minute.' He looked through his field-glasses,
and caught the glint of an officer's sword.

'Beating 'em with the flat--damned conscripts! How the Ghazis are
walking into them!' said he.

The Fore and Aft, heading back, bore with them their officers. The
narrowness of the pass forced the mob into solid formation, and the
rear-rank delivered some sort of a wavering volley. The Ghazis drew
off, for they did not know what reserves the gorge might hide.
Moreover, it was never wise to chase white men too far. They returned
as wolves return to cover, satisfied with the slaughter that they had
done, and only stopping to slash at the wounded on the ground. A
quarter of a mile had the Fore and Aft retreated, and now, jammed in
the pass, was quivering with pain, shaken and demoralised with fear,
while the officers, maddened beyond control, smote the men with the
hilts and the flats of their swords.

'Get back! Get back, you cowards--you women! Right about face--column
of companies, form--you hounds!' shouted the Colonel, and the
subalterns swore aloud. But the Regiment wanted to go--to go anywhere
out of the range of those merciless knives. It swayed to and fro
irresolutely with shouts and outcries, while from the right the
Gurkhas dropped volley after volley of cripple-stopper Snid