“I shall be heartily glad to get on to open ground again, Graham,” said the Colonel.
“My heart has been in my mouth for the last two hours,” was the reply. “We can do nothing but press on.”
“And trust to the rocks up there being impassable to the enemy, if there is one on the stir.”
“Yes; I don’t think he could get up there,” replied the Major; “but there is an enemy astir, you may be sure.”
“I suppose so. The fact of a force like ours being at their mercy would set all the marauding scoundrels longing. Well, we have done everything possible. We’re safe front and rear, and we can laugh up here at any attack from below on the right.”
Just about the same time Bracy and his friend Roberts were tripping and stumbling along with their company, the slowness of the baggage giving them time to halt now and then to gaze in awe and wonder at the stupendous precipices around and the towering snow-mountains which came more and more into sight at every turn of the zigzag track.
“I suppose the Colonel knows what he’s about,” said Bracy during one of these halts.
“I suppose so,” replied Roberts. “Why?”
“Because we seem to me to be getting more and more into difficulties, and where we must be polished off if the enemy lies in wait for us in force. Why in the world doesn’t he try another way to Ghittah?”
“For the simple reason, my boy, that there is no other way from the south. There’s one from the north, and one from the east.”
“That settles the question, then, as to route; but oughtn’t we to have flankers out?”
“Light cavalry?” said the Captain grimly.
“Bosh! Don’t talk to me as if I were a fool. I mean skirmishers out right and left.”
“Look here, young fellow, we have all we can do to get along by the regular track.”
“Irregular track,” said Bracy, laughing.
“Right. How, then, do you think our lads could get along below there?”
“Yes; impossible,” said Bracy, with a sigh; and then glancing upward at the towering perpendicular rocks, he added, “and no one could get along there even with ropes and scaling-ladders. Well, I shall be precious glad to be out of it.”
“There, don’t fret. I expect we shall find any amount of this sort of country.”
“Then I don’t see how any manoeuvring’s to be done. We shall be quite at the mercy of the enemy.”
“Oh! one never knows.”
“Well, I know this,” said Bracy; “if I were in command I should devote my attention to avoiding traps. Hallo! what’s amiss?”
The conversation had been cut short by the sharp crack of a rifle, which set the echoes rolling, and the two young officers hurried forward past their halted men, who, according to instructions, had dropped down, seeking every scrap of shelter afforded by the rocks.
“What is it?” asked Bracy as he reached the men who were in front, the advance-guard being well ahead and a couple of hundred feet below.
Half-a-dozen voices replied, loud above all being that of Private Gedge:
“Some one up there, sir, chucking stones down at us.”
“No,” replied Bracy confidently as he shaded his eyes and gazed up; “a stone or two set rolling by a mountain sheep or two. No one could be up there.”
“What!” cried the lad excitedly. “Why, I see a chap in a white nightgown, sir, right up there, shove a stone over the edge of the parrypit, and it come down with a roosh.”
“Was it you who fired?”
“Yes, sir; I loosed off at him at once, but I ’spect it was a rickershay.”
“Keep down in front there, my lads,” said Captain Roberts. “Did any one else see the enemy?”
A little chorus of “No” arose.
“Well, I dunno where yer eyes must ha’ been, pardners,” cried Gedge in a tone full of disgust; and then, before a word of reproof or order for silence could be uttered, he was standing right up, shaking his fist fiercely and shouting, “Hi, there! you shy that, and I’ll come up and smash yer.”
The words were still leaving his lips when Bracy had a glimpse of a man’s head, then of his arms and chest, as he seemed to grasp a great stone, out of a crack five hundred feet above them, and as it fell he disappeared, the sharp cracks of half-a-dozen rifles ringing out almost together, and the stone striking a sharp edge of the precipitous face, shivering into a dozen fragments, which came roaring down, striking and splintering again and again, and glancing off to pass the shelf with a whirring, rushing sound, and strike again in a scattering volley far below.
“Any one touched?” cried the Captain.
“No, sir; no, sir.”
“I think that chap were, sir,” whispered Gedge, who was reloading close to Bracy’s side. “I didn’t have much time to aim, sir, and the smoke got a bit before my eyes, but he dropped back precious sudden. But oh, dear me, no!” he went on muttering, and grinning the while at his comrades, “I didn’t see no one up there. I’d got gooseb’ries in my head ’stead of eyes. Now then, look out, lads; it’s shooting for nuts, and forty in the bull’s-eye.”
“Hold yer row; here’s the Colonel coming,” whispered the man next him.
“Keep well under cover, my lads,” said Bracy as the clattering of hoofs was heard.
“Right, sir,” said one of the men.
“Why don’t you, then?” muttered Gedge.
“Silence, sir!” snarled Sergeant Gee, who was close behind.
“All right,” said Gedge softly; “but I don’t want to see my orficer go down.”
For, regardless of danger, while his men were pretty well in shelter, Bracy was standing right out, using a field-glass.
“Cover, cover, Mr Bracy,” cried the Colonel sharply, and as he reined up he was put quickly in possession of the facts.
“Shall we have to go back, Sergeant?” whispered Gedge.
“You will – under arrest, sir, if you don’t keep that tongue between your teeth.”
“All right, Sergeant,” muttered Gedge. “I only wanted to know.”
He knew directly after, for the Colonel cried sharply:
“That’s right, my lads; keep close, and fire the moment you see a movement. You six men go over the side there, and fire from the edge of the road.”
The section spoken to rose and changed their positions rapidly, and as they did so a couple more blocks of stone were set in motion from above, and struck as the others had done, but did not break, glancing off, and passing over the men’s heads with a fierce whir.
“Cover the advance with your company, and change places with the rear-guard when they have passed. Steady, there, my lads,” continued the Colonel to the next company of the halted regiment; “forward!”
He took his place at their head, and advanced at a walk as coolly as if on parade; and the first movement seemed like a signal for stone after stone to be sent bounding down, and to be passed on their way by the long, thin, bolt-like bullets from the covering company’s rifles, which spattered on the rocks above and kept the enemy from showing themselves, till, finding that every stone touched in the same place and glanced off the projecting shoulder half-way up, they became more bold, irritated without doubt by seeing the soldiers continue their course steadily along the track in spite of their efforts to stop their progress.
“That’s