"Go ahead then," he said. "Advance warily; and good luck to you."
The Boy needed no second bidding. Eagerly, yet with all due precautions, he went forward with his handful of Pathans; and was soon lost to sight and sound in the darkness of the giant cleft.
Desmond, left alone, could hardly contain himself till the infantry came up. Dividing into two flanking parties, they scrambled up the steep slopes into the full radiance of dawn; while Desmond, with his squadron ready drawn up, awaited the signal, "All's clear," before entering the defile.
In due time it came; and they moved on between the frowning cliffs at a pace as rapid as the exigencies of the situation would permit.
Here night fronted them, dank and chill. It was as if the clock had been put back four hours. Only a jagged strip of sky, between projecting crags, announced the advent of day. No living thing seemed to inhabit this region of perpetual twilight. At intervals a gnarled and twisted bush grew out of a cleft, lifting spectral foliage toward where the sun should be, and was not. Silence pervaded the dusk like a living presence; unseen, but so poignantly felt that the whisper of the stream and the crunch of shingle under the horses' hoofs seemed an affront to the ghostly spirit of the place; and the sowars, when exchanging remarks among themselves, instinctively refrained from raising their voices.
Desmond, closely followed by his trumpeter, rode ahead of the troopers, chafing at their leaden-footed progress. A hand-gallop would have been too slow for the speed of his thoughts, tormented as he was by anxious wondering what had become of the Boy; while his ears were strained to catch the first sounds of contest from the heights, which were already widening out a little, and beginning to slope towards lower ground.
Sounds came at length—harsh and startling;—the unmistakable note of the jezail; answering shots from his own men;—proofs incontestable that a sharp engagement was in progress up above.
"Ambuscaded,—by Heaven!" was Desmond's instant thought. Mercifully the exit was already in sight; and flinging brisk instructions to the Ressaldar to follow him closely with a hundred sowars, leaving the remainder to take charge of the horses, and hold the opening till further orders, Desmond made for it full tilt, spurring Badshah Pasand as he had never been spurred in all his days. On dashing out into the sunlight he was greeted by a rattle of musketry from behind a tumbled mass of rock; and a dozen bullets buzzed about him like bees.
One riddled his helmet, stirring his hair as it passed. A second struck his left shoulder, inflicting a flesh wound of which he was not even conscious at the moment; for Badshah Pasand lunged ominously forward; swayed, staggered; and with a sound between a cough and a groan, fell headlong, flinging his rider clear on to the rough upward slope.