“Yes. Rimbolt, Halgrove, and I were inseparable when we were at Oxford. Did I ever tell you of our walking tour in the Lakes? We ruled a bee-line across the map with a ruler and walked along it, neck or nothing. Of course you know about it. We’ve sobered down since then. Rimbolt married Halgrove’s sister, and I married Rimbolt’s. I had no sister, so Halgrove remained a bachelor.”
“What became of him?”
“I fancy he made a mess of it, poor fellow. He went in for finance, and it was too much for him. Not that he lost his money; but he became a little too smart. He dropped a hundred or two of mine, and a good deal more of Rimbolt’s—but he could spare it. The last I heard of him was about twelve years ago. He had a partner called Jeffreys; a stupid honest sort of fellow who believed in him. I had a newspaper sent me with an account of an inquest on poor Jeffreys, who had gone out of his mind after some heavy losses. There was no special reason to connect Halgrove with the losses, except that Jeffreys would never have dreamed of speculating if he hadn’t been led on. And it’s only fair to Halgrove to say that after the event he offered to take charge of Jeffreys’ boy, at that time eight years old. That shows there was some good in him.”
“Unless,” suggested Captain Forrester, “there was some money along with the boy.”
“Well, I dare say if he’s alive still, Rimbolt will know something of him; so I may come across him yet,” said the major; and there the conversation ended.
Major Atherton’s prophecy of a brush with the enemy was not long in being fulfilled.
Early next day the expeditionary force was ordered forward, the cavalry regiment in which the two friends were officers being sent ahead to reconnoitre and clear the passes.
The march lay for some distance along a rocky valley, almost desolate of habitations, and at parts so cumbered with rocks and stones as to be scarcely passable by the horses, still less by the artillery, which struggled forward in front of the main body. The rocks on the right bank towered to a vast height, breaking here and there into a gorge which admitted some mountain stream down into the river below, and less frequently falling back to make way for a wild saddle-back pass into the plains above.
Along such a course every step was perilous, for the enemy had already been reported as hovering at the back of these ugly rocks, and might show their teeth at any moment.
For an hour or two, however, the march continued uninterrupted. The few scattered Afghans who had appeared for a moment on the heights above had fallen back after exchanging shots, with no attempt at serious resistance. The main body had been halted in the valley, awaiting the return of the scouts. The horses had been unharnessed from the guns, and the officers were snatching a hurried meal, when Captain Forrester at the head of a few troopers scampered into the lines. The news instantly spread that the enemy had been seen ahead, and was even then being chased by the cavalry up one of the defiles to the right.