Not a shot was heard, not a stroke we smote,
As we trod our home-journey unhurried.
The papers about us wrote thundering rot,
But Sir Robert kept cool and unflurried.
We'd had heat to encounter, and frost to fight,
Alternately freezing and burning,
And now Umra Khan and his hordes put to flight;
We were quietly homeward returning.
Through the Malakand Pass we as conquerors pressed,
And had vanquished the foe where we found him.