"Oh, yes!" he smiled; "I'm taking them all. That's the worst of being the weaker side."
He stopped, and looked out again over the Bewal valley, where the enemy's forces could be seen dividing in the form of a Y, one arm leading towards the Sorágh Gul and the other towards the entrance of the Sar defile, where Dore was lying.
"He's coming this way?" she suggested.
"Yes," he assented, "he's coming this way—half of him. He's either found out our little game, or he's going to make sure we're not playing it. So we've got to fight him here."
"Is that worse for us?" she enquired anxiously.
He nodded.
"And who's over there?" she asked, with a tilt of her head towards the distant hills.
"Subadar Afzul Singh and the Guides," he said; "but thanks to Mir Khan, they can move up now, which is a point to us. And now we must go down to lunch."
It was all so evidently the playing of a game to him, though the stakes were life and death, that she was infected for the moment by his incentive to the forgetfulness of her own fears, and asked eagerly of Afzul's march as they went down the hill together.
Terrington expected the Guides in three hours, and though he had no fear of being unable to hold out until they joined him, it was a question if he could delay his counter attack so long without rendering Dore's position too precarious. Everything would depend on the pace at which the enemy advanced and the force employed for his first attack.