row of that trooper falling ought to have scared half the country,
and I would take my oath that we were being stalked by a full
regiment in the rear, and they were making row enough to rouse all
Afghanistan. I sat tight, but nothing happened."

The mysterious part of the night's work was the silence on the
hillside. Everybody knew that the Gulla Kutta Mullah had his
outpost-huts on the reverse side of the hill, and everybody
expected, by the time that the Major had sworn himself into quiet,
that the watchmen there would open fire. When nothing happened,
they said that the gusts of the rain had deadened the sound of the
horses, and thanked Providence. At last the Major satisfied
himself (a) that he had left no one behind among the cairns, and
(b) that he was not being taken in the rear by a large and
powerful body of cavalry. The men's tempers were thoroughly
spoiled, the horses were lathered and unquiet, and one and all
prayed for the daylight.

They set themselves to climb up the hill, each man leading his
mount carefully. Before they had covered the lower slopes or the
breast-plates had begun to tighten, a thunderstorm came up behind,
rolling across the low hills and drowning any noise less than that
of cannon. The first flash of the lightning showed the bare ribs
of the ascent, thc hill-crest standing steely-blue against the
black sky, the little falling lines of the rain, and, a few yards
to their left flank, an Afghan watch-tower, two-storied, built of
stone, and entered by a ladder from the upper story. The ladder
was up, and a man with a rifle was leaning from the window. The
darkness and the thunder rolled down in an instant, and, when the
lull followed, a voice from the watch-tower cried, "Who goes