to meet the
advancing troops at once.

He had not long to restrain his impatience; the red and the grey lines
swept into the base, and were among the boulders in a trice. Then the
whole mountain side seemed to burst forth into flame and smoke, and from
his commanding position Harry could see that here and there an advancing
figure stopped, and came on no more, but dotted the ground with a
scarlet or brown patch.

The scene would have resembled a holiday sham fight but for those
figures which lay motionless, taking no further part, so orderly and
regular was the advance. Presently the combat entered on a new phase.
Unchecked by the storm of fire which had broken out upon them, the
Highlanders and South Staffordshire pressed steadily on amongst the
rocks; when there was room they squeezed between them; when this could
not be done they swarmed over them; still they pressed steadily on.
Steadily, indeed, but slowly. Behind each rock there was an Arab, and
when a soldier wriggled round it or swarmed over it, he found himself
engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict, in which, however, the bayonet
generally proved victorious over sword or spear. It was most
magnificent fighting; each individual man had to force his independent
way in the face of a deadly fire from hidden foes, at whose covers he
went straight. If he were hit there was an end of his course; but, if
he stood up, into the hiding-place where his foe lay concealed, he was
bound to go; and then, if he killed his man, as he mostly did, forwards
and upwards at another. There was no sense of support afforded by the
touch of comrades, and the being an item of a serried mass, as in the
case of the majority of the battles of the Soudan, fought in square
formation. Then there might be unsteady or pusillanimous soldiers,
whose faults were hidden by their firmer comrades, from whose presence
and example they gained confidence; but at Kirbekan every soldier fought
on his own account, as it were, and failure in courage or dash in any
individual would have been at once perceptible. But there was no such
failure, and the Black Watch and South Staffordshire fought as British
soldiers fought in the Peninsula, at Waterloo, at Alma, and at Inkerman.

Higher and higher they came, and the Arabs began to grow uncontrollably
excited. The Sheikh Burrachee came to the post occupied by Harry, who
immediately let loose his rifle at a fine rock near which there was
nobody. But he mi