_Lyra Heroica_.]

This story which I am going to tell you is a true one. It happened while
the English troops in India were fighting against some of the native
tribes. The natives who were making trouble were people from the
hill-country, called Hillsmen, and they were strong enemies. The English
knew very little about them, except their courage, but they had noticed
one peculiar custom, after certain battles,--the Hillsmen had a way of
marking the bodies of their greatest chiefs who were killed in battle by
binding a red thread about the wrist; this was the highest tribute they
could pay a hero. The English, however, found the common men of them quite
enough to handle, for they had proved themselves good fighters and clever
at ambushes.

One day, a small body of the English had marched a long way into the hill
country, after the enemy, and in the afternoon they found themselves in a
part of the country strange even to the guides. The men moved forward very
slowly and cautiously, for fear of an ambush. The trail led into a narrow
valley with very steep, high, rocky sides, topped with woods in which the
enemy might easily hide.

Here the soldiers were ordered to advance more quickly, though with
caution, to get out of the dangerous place.

After a little they came suddenly to a place where the passage was divided
in two by a big three-cornered boulder which seemed to rise from the midst
of the valley. The main line of men kept to the right; to save crowding
the path, a sergeant and eleven men took the left, meaning to go round
the rock and meet the rest beyond it.