There the blinds were drawn down, as if the hussar who had found his grave in the Cabul River was lying dead in the bed he had slept on in boyhood and manhood, and across which his mother now lay stretched in hopeless grief.
And a sad-eyed and sympathetic congregation watched the venerable minister when, with bent eyes, and slow, unsteady steps, he entered his pulpit next Sunday.
All knew the dire calamity that had befallen him, and one and all their kindly Scottish hearts bled for him, when his voice failed, his sermon escaped him, and stretching out his trembling hands on the pulpit cushion, he bent down his handsome old head upon them—a head now white as the thistledown—and begged his people to excuse him, 'as all night long he had been in the Valley of the Shadow of Death!'
Then his elders led him into the vestry, and those who saw him descending the stair of that pulpit, wherein he had ministered unto them faithfully for more than thirty years, never forgot the painful episode.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE 10TH HUSSARS.
And now to detail how the catastrophe referred to came about.
The evening of Monday, the 31st of March, saw Leslie Colville in his saddle, and busy conveying orders in the camp and cantonments of Jellalabad, where drum and bugle gave the notes of preparation for the field.
This was between five and six o'clock, when two columns were suddenly ordered out for another expedition towards the Lughman Valley.
One, to be led by Brigadier Gough, was to consist of seven hundred men furnished by the 17th and 27th regiments, three hundred native infantry, four Royal Horse Artillery guns under Major Stewart, and two squadrons of the dashing Guide Cavalry.