prayed for the daylight.

They set themselves to climb up the hill, each man leading his mount
carefully. Before they had covered the lower slopes or the
breastplates had begun to tighten, a thunderstorm came up behind,
rolling across the low hills and drowning any noise less than that of
cannon. The first flash of the lightning showed the bare ribs of the
ascent, the hill-crest standing steely blue against the black sky,
the little falling lines of the rain, and, a few yards to their left
flank, an Afghan watch-tower, two-storied, built of stone, and
entered by a ladder from the upper story. The ladder was up, and a
man with a rifle was leaning from the window. The darkness and the
thunder rolled down in an instant, and, when the lull followed, a
voice from the watch-tower cried, 'Who goes there?'

The cavalry were very quiet, but each man gripped his carbine and
stood beside his horse. Again the voice called, 'Who goes there?'
and in a louder key, 'O, brothers, give the alarm!' Now, every man in
the cavalry would have died in his long boots sooner than have asked
for quarter; but it is a fact that the answer to the second call was
a long wail of 'Marf karo! Marf karo!' which means, 'Have mercy! Have
mercy!' It came from the climbing regiment.

The cavalry stood dumbfoundered, till the big troopers had time to
whisper one to another: 'Mir Khan, was that thy voice? Abdullah,
didst _thou_ call?' Lieutenant Halley stood beside his charger and
waited. So long as no firing was going on he was content. Another
flash of lightning showed the horses with heaving flanks and nodding
heads, the men, white eye-balled, glaring beside them and the stone
watch-tower to the left. This time there was no head at the window,
and the rude iron-clamped shutter that could turn a rifle bullet was
closed.

'Go on, men,' said the Major. 'Get up to the top at any rate.' The
squadron toiled forward, the horses wagging their tails and the men
pulling at the bridles, the stones rolling down the hillside and the
sparks flying. Lieutenant Halley declares that he never heard a
squadron make so much noise in his life. They scrambled up, he said,
as though each horse had eight legs and a spare horse to follow him.
Even then there was no sound from the watch-tower, and the men
stopped exhausted on the ridge that overlooked the pit of darkness in
which the village of Bersund lay. Girths were loosed, curb-chains
shifted, and saddles adjusted, and the