CHAPTER XIII.
A FIGHT WITH THE MOHMUNDS.
Save for flying rumours cantonment life at Jellalabad had been a little monotonous for some time past. Paper hunts had been resorted to, and polo was played every afternoon by officers of the 10th Hussars, riding Cabul ponies upon a piece of ground cleared for them by their men about two miles from the city.
Other officers exercised their skill in 'potting,' with the breechloader, quails, and the beautiful partridge, called the 'hill chuckore' by the Afghans, wild sheep, and antelopes, while some of the more adventurous brought down a wolf or hyena, but as these were chiefly to be found at a distance some personal risk was incurred, and one might be 'potted' in turn by the 'juzail' of some hill-man lurking unseen behind a rock or tree.
The counterbalance to these little amusements were visitations of wind and dust, or torrents of rain, that pattered like a storm of dry peas on the tents of the troops who were in camp near the city, so, when the weather had become settled, all hailed with considerable satisfaction the advent of the expedition under General Macpherson to look after a gathering of the Mohmunds—a tribe of about fifty thousand souls, whose fighting men were reported as mustering for mischief on the other side of the Cabul river, in the south-west corner of the Jellalabad Valley, opposite to Girdi Kas, where the stream flows away towards Chardeh.
The staff were in their saddles betimes, and on the ground in front of the city.
'Good morning, gentlemen,' said old Spatterdash, as he came cantering up on his Arab in the dark. 'What is the hour?'
Colville adroitly caught a firefly, and placing it for a moment on the glass of his watch, saw the time.
'Four o'clock, colonel.'
'We have other work this morning than pig-sticking or potting jackals and foxes; but there is time yet for a cup of coffee dashed with brandy—a cheroot, and then away.'