One of the jampanis was hit in the first fusillade, and, another dropping with fright, the doolie came with a crash to the ground, and Rose scrambled out of it, her teeth set and a little revolver in her hand, to face what would probably have proved the closing scene of the day's fight, had not, at that moment, the leading company of the Guides emerged from the defile.
They had come for three miles at the double and had no breath for shouting, but they extended with parade precision, and went straight for the scattered sharpshooters on the enemy's left.
But the day was too old for half measures. With a faith in reinforcements and a strong front, Terrington signalled Afzul Singh, who had, despite his forty-five years, outpaced on foot the youngest of his men, to keep his right shoulder up, thus ignoring the enemy's left and bringing the Guides through the broken Bakót men on the main road. Then, as the panting line came up to him, Terrington put himself in front of it and charged straight at Mir Khan's centre.
That part of the enemy's front, unaware, owing to the slope of the ground, of the Guides' arrival, only waited a snap of the trigger, as the wave of buff-clad men burst over the rise. Then it turned and ran.
Blown though his men were, Terrington carried them half a mile further before halting them. By doing so he cut in halves Mir Khan's line of battle and isolated his entire left wing, which did not need a second volley from the Guides to explain what had happened, and in an instant was leaping like a flock of goats over the shale slopes in wild retreat.
Leaving Afzul with half a company to complete the rout, Terrington wheeled the other half to the left, and, coming into line with the Dogras and Sikhs, fell upon the enemy's right, which had seen the defeat of the centre, and pressed it hotly down the hill.
He only carried the pressure far enough to clear the road, and, as soon as the second company of the Guides appeared in the gap to form his rear-guard a general movement began across the valley towards the Sorágh Gul; the Sikhs, Dogras and half a company of the Guides covering the transport on the south side, the second company of the Guides, breathless but athirst for battle, holding the road behind it, and the Bakót men still running like hounds over the great shale slopes on the north hacking down the flying Saris with their knives or shooting them like rabbits at a dozen yards.
It was a triumph of unhoped-for victory, but even yet was not complete. For the swiftness of Terrington's advance brought him to the Gul before the men who had been pursuing Walcot could recross it after the news of Mir Khan's defeat had reached their ears. The Gul was a ravine with sides almost precipitous and close upon two hundred feet in depth, with a torrent raging over its rocks which could only be forded at one place.
Walcot, reinforced by Freddy Gale with the garrison of Rashát had turned upon his pursuers, who reached in their flight one side of the Gul as Terrington's force appeared on the other.
Panic-stricken they plunged into its abyss to escape the bullets behind them, hoping to hide amongst the boulders in the torrent's bed.