The doolie spun round, but before it was gone a hundred yards Rose stopped the bearers.
The morning was gray, cold, and very still, just after dawn. A white wet mist had come down upon the hills, and hung from cliff to cliff like a ceiling cloth across the valley. Ahead, laid out behind boulders of blue grey stone, she could see the yellowish attenuated line of Dore's Sikhs spread like a fan on either side of the road.
A runner, naked but for his loin-cloth, and throwing up the dust from the soles of his feet, went by towards the front, coming back somewhat less hurriedly ten minutes later.
There was no further sound nor sign of life for half an hour, and then Terrington with an orderly came in view round the bend of the road riding slowly. He stopped with a smile of wonder where Rose was sitting on a stone before her doolie at the side of the road.
"However did you get here?" he asked.
"Mr. Dore sent me back," she pouted.
"Sent you back!" he echoed. "I should think he did."
She came up to his horse's shoulder, and with a "Good morning," offered him her hand.
"Is it going to be a fight?" she asked as he took it.
"It is," he answered, "and you're in front of the firing line. You must wait here till I return to you."