Favoured by the elements, Major Scott cautiously but steadily advanced his little force until they were close up to the ascent of the hill, but well screened by the wild luxuriance of the vegetation, the growth of ages, as yet undisturbed by the demands or needs of man, or the onward march of those civilising forces which are ever working for the advancement of the race.
Pulling their blankets around them, his men bivouacked where they had halted, to snatch a few hours' repose, in order that they might be the better prepared to face what was before them.
A little more than an hour had passed when the distant sounds of rifle-firing came echoing down the hill, which no sooner reached the slumbering groups than Major Scott gave the signal, and his bugler sounded the call to arms, and in a very brief space of time his little party was up, saddled, and in motion at a brisk trot.
Guided by the information which their scout had brought them,—and who was now to the front, with the Major, leading,—they soon reached the spot described by him, where he had seen the band encamped.
Save the dying embers of a solitary fire, the darkness was too profound to render objects visible at a distance. Nor could they detect the sounds of any life present, except those which came from their own party.
As the men moved across the plain, the horse of one stumbled over an object in the darkness, which its rider, on dismounting, found was the body of a man apparently lifeless, indicating that the firing which had aroused them must have been in this locality, and that the place could only recently have been abandoned.
In a few moments their attention was arrested by the sounds of approaching horsemen, and an occasional shot being fired.
That familiarity with darkness which renders objects at first all but invisible gradually distinguishable through the gloom, had enabled Scott and his contingent with some degree of certainty to fix their surroundings, as well as to form a tolerable conception of their position.
Directing a trooper to sound a bugle blast, it was answered by one from the advancing party, and in a short while they could distinguish the figures of men and horses as they came round a bend of the hill to the left of where they had halted.
In answer to the Major's challenge, these forces were soon discovered to be the two divisions which had ascended to the hill on its eastern and western slopes.