By this time there was silence all along the column. The horses were
still; but, through the drive of the fine rain, men could hear the
feet of many horses moving over stony ground.

'We're being stalked,' said Lieutenant Halley.

'They've no horses here. Besides they'd have fired before this,' said
the Major. 'It's--it's villagers' ponies.'

'Then our horses would have neighed and spoilt the attack long ago.
They must have been near us for half an hour,' said the subaltern.

'Queer that we can't smell the horses,' said the Major, damping his
finger and rubbing it on his nose as he sniffed up wind.

'Well, it's a bad start,' said the subaltern, shaking the wet from
his overcoat. 'What shall we do, sir?'

'Get on,' said the Major. 'We shall catch it to-night.'

The column moved forward very gingerly for a few paces. Then there
was an oath, a shower of blue sparks as shod hooves crashed on small
stones, and a man rolled over with a jangle of accoutrements that
would have waked the dead.

'Now we've gone and done it,' said Lieutenant Halley. 'All the
hillside awake, and all the hillside to climb in the face of
musketry-fire. This comes of trying to do night-hawk work.'

The trembling trooper picked himself up, and tried to explain that