'Hardy and trained, the 13th, or Prince Albert's Own, marched speedily and splendidly, setting an example to the rest of the brigade, and their chorusing merrily woke the echoes of the impending rocks; but no actual hostility was displayed by the warlike denizens of these until the troops were fairly entangled in the deepest, steepest, and most perilous parts of the passes.
'Then the cliffs above us seemed to become suddenly alive with men, chiefly yellow-turbaned Khyberees, who opened a storm of fire upon us that told with dreadful effect, strewing the whole tortuous path from front to rear with killed and wounded. So skilful too were these Afghans in the art of skirmishing, that save for the red flash of their matchlocks streaking the gloom, it was impossible to detect where the marksmen lay. Rocks and simple stones—some not larger than a 13-inch shell, sufficed to shelter the lurking juzailchee, who squatted down, showing, if anything, only the long barrel of his deadly weapon, and the tip of his turban. Then might be seen the hardihood, and the majesty, with which a British soldier fights!
'Cheerily rang out the bugles of the 13th, for "the leading companies to extend," and away the skirmishers swept over the precipices, scouring the terrible hills on the right and left, using the bayonet wherever an opportunity served; and driving back the wild mountaineers, till, just as night was closing in, we came in sight of a mighty barricade of earth, stones and turf, built right across the narrow pass, for the purpose of cutting off all further passage or progress.
'Sale, who was suffering acutely from a ball in his leg, gave the order to storm it, and just as, with a loud cheer, the leading companies assailed it with a headlong rush, a ball struck me in the left ankle, and my shako flew off; an invocation to heaven escaped me, I fell heavily, my head came in contact with the rocks, and insensibility rendered me oblivious alike of peril and agony, as our men swept over me to storm the barrier, which they did brilliantly, fairly opening up a passage to Boothak, and carrying off all their wounded save me. I had fallen unseen, and in the dark was left behind, while the flashing and reports of the musketry died out in the distance.
'Bitter and terrible were my first emotions, when the falling dew roused me in that savage place; bleeding, helpless, unable to stand or crawl, a prey it might soon be to Afghan knives, or the teeth of those wild animals which would soon scent the dead that lay around me. I was not left long to reflect. I had just bandaged my wounded limb with my handkerchief, when a party of Afghans passed. One uttered a hoarse cry, and was about to decapitate me by one slash, when another interposed, and I found myself the prisoner of Zemaun Khan.
'"Death to the Feringhee!" cried the astonished Afghans.
'"Hold, I command you!" said Zemaun; "he is my brother."
'"Is he not one of those who would send our chiefs in chains to the Queen of the Feringhees in London?"
'"He is my brother!"
'By his order I was conveyed, not unkindly, to a solitary round tower among the mountains, where I remained a prisoner for longer than I care to remember, with the terrible consciousness that I might be murdered at any moment of caprice, or kept a life-long captive, forgotten by all, while Mabel Berriedale became the wife of Jack Villars, or some one else.