Suddenly he heard a voice cry out,
'Is this you, Captain Colville?'
The questioner, whose grammar was not very choice, proved to be the hussar Toby Chace, who was sitting bareheaded, dripping, and disconsolate on the river bank.
Colville was almost voiceless, so Toby waded in, and assisted him to dry land, where he could scarcely stand from exhaustion, but was able ultimately, with the assistance of Chace, to reach the camp, where he found that his horse had arrived before him.
All the troop horses were heard to snort wildly as the current swept them away, and, being overweighted by their saddles, the slung carbines, and other trappings, they beat the air with their hoofs as they rolled about; but only twelve were drowned.
When the roll was called, forty-six hussars, who would never hear it again, were missing, with Lieutenant Harford and another officer. Many of their bodies, when found, showed broken limbs, the result of kicks from iron-shod hoofs, and many of them had their hands raised to their heads, either for protection or through pain from blows, and in that position they had stiffened in death.
One poor fellow was swept a long way down the Cabul river, but clambered into a native boat, where he was found next day, dead from exhaustion and cold.
'An awful calamity! A devil of a business!'
'How did it happen? Whose fault was it?'
Such were a few of the exclamations heard on every hand in camp, from whence, on the first arrival of the riderless horses, soldiers had rushed to the river side with lanterns and ropes, and staff-surgeons with restoratives.