there?"

The cavalry were very quiet, but each man gripped his carbine and
stood beside his horse. Again the voice called, "Who goes there?"
and in a louder key, "0 brothers, give the alarm!" Now, every man
in the cavalry would have died in his long boots sooner than have
asked for quarter, but it is a fact that the answer to the second
call was a long wail of "Marf karo! Marf karo!" which means, "Have
mercy! Have mercy!" It came from the climbing regiment.

The cavalry stood dumbfoundered, till the big troopers had time to
whisper one to another:
"Mir Khan, was that thy voice? Abdullah, didst thou call?"
Lieutenant Halley stood beside his charger and waited. So long as
no firing was going on he was content. Another flash of lightning
showed the horses with heaving flanks and nodding heads; the men,
white eye-balled, glaring beside them, and the stone watch-tower
to the left. This time there was no head at the window, and the
rude iron-clamped shutter that could turn a rifle-bullet was
closed.

"Go on, men," said the Major. "Get up to the top at any rate!" The
squadron toiled forward, the horses wagging their tails and the
men pulling at the bridles, the stones rolling down the hillside
and the sparks flying. Lieutenant Halley declares that he never
heard a squadron make so much noise in his life. They scrambled
up, he said, as though each horse had eight legs and a spare horse
to follow him. Even then there was no sound from the watch-tower,
and the men stopped exhausted on the ridge that overlooked the pit
of darkness in which the village of Bersund lay. Girths were