stood
dreaming to the stars. Lower down, at rare intervals, dwarf oaks and
the "low lean thorn" of the desert stood out, black and spectral,
against the lesser darkness of rocks and stones. In the valley itself
the stones had it all their own way;--a ghostly company, rounded and
polished by the stream, which crept among them now a mere ribbon of
silver, but in four months' time would come thundering through the
gorge in a garment of foam, with the shout of a wild thing loosed from
bondage. The triumph of desolation was reached in the savage peaks
that almost fronted the camp and descended to the valley in a cataract
of crags. Here even the persevering thorn-bush could take no hold upon
a surface of bare rock, split up into clefts, and chiselled to such
fantastic shapes that the whole might have inspired Dante's conception
of the ravine by which he descended to the nether hell.

Absorbed in the requirements of earth, and untroubled by ghostly
imaginings, officers and men slept soundly, with one eye open, as
soldiers experienced in Frontier warfare learn to do; and when at last
the earth, turning in its sleep, swung round towards the sun and the
still air quivered with foreknowledge of morning, a sudden outcropping
of life, where no life should be, amply justified the need for
vigilance.

From the darkness of a ravine some distance above the camp, a shadowy
mass of figures poured hurriedly, stealthily, into the valley--men of
splendid physique, in loose dark draperies or sheepskin coats,
carrying leathern shields and the formidable Afridi knife,
bone-handled, with a two-foot blade that will halve a man's head as if
it were a lemon.

By a preconcerted arrangement they divided into two parties, and
keeping within the deepest patches of shadow, bore down upon the
nearest pickets with a fierce, soundless rush,--the most disconcerting
form of attack to sleepy sentries in the small hours, when life and
courage are at their lowest ebb. But the picket sentries happened to
be Sikhs; and they are ill men to tackle at close quarters or to
spring on unawares.

Close upon the first determined rush came a scuffle, a smothered
shout, the sharp crack of rifles in quick succession; and before the
hills had flung back the volley of sound, the whole camp hummed with
life from end to end, like a broken ant-heap.

A fusilade of shots rang out on all sides. Men hurried about among the
tents, concentrating at the two points of attack. He