Robert Wodrow gave a glance at the blackened ruins of the tower on the summit of which he had last seen Colville, rifle in hand, resisting to the last, and a bitter sigh escaped him as he quitted the city, and resolutely turned his face and steps towards the passes, through which he hoped to reach our outpost at Lundi Khani Kotal, more than a hundred and fifty miles distant, amid hostile tribes and savage ways, by the Latband Pass, Jugdulluk, Gundamuck, and the Khoord Khyber, at the very contemplation of which his heart sank with despair. 'All about the city,' said a print of the time, 'there were Afghans enough--the whole hive seemed restless with multitudinous motion; but when the solitary traveller (after the hideous uproar of the past night) had cleared the city precincts, the old desolation of the dreary hill country lay stretched before him, and along the rugged ways hardly a man was moving.' Yet the rugged paths through the stupendous passes had many dangers for the disguised hussar. Tigers, wolves, and hyenas were to be met with, making sleep and night alike perilous and horrible; and to these were added by day the chance of discovery by the equally savage tribesmen, and a death by torture, such as only the Oriental mind can conceive, at their merciless hands. Yet, though aware of all he had to encounter, Robert Wodrow took to the hills as a mountaineer born, and strode resolutely and manfully on. CHAPTER VI. THE FORT OF MAHMOUD SHAH. Resolutely had Leslie Colville defended the summit of the somewhat isolated tower on which he had taken post with only four chosen marksmen, intending to enfilade the front attack on the Residency, and pick off the best shots in possession of the lofty arsenal roof; but he had soon the mortification to see each of his men perish in quick succession, and to find the tower in flames beneath him, cutting off his descent, and leaving him helplessly exposed to a fire from those who must soon have smitten him down but for the frantic fury with which they impeded each other's aim and operations; and while thus perilously situated he heard friendly voices--or such he thought them to be--calling to him from below in Hindustani. He looked down, and on a gun-platform about twenty feet from where he stood were four natives, Hindostanees, as appeared by their costume--the turban, with a couple of scarfs each, one wrapped round the body, and the other over the shoulders, leaving the rest of the body uncovered--holding outstretched a strong horse-rug or blanket, into which they invited him to drop himself, and trust to them and to their united strength for breaking his fall. 'Chullo, sahib--golee chulte!' (come along, sir--the balls are flying) cried one. 'Chullo, bhai--chullo, pultania sahib!' (Come on, brother--come, battalion officer) cried the other three, also in a kind of Hindustani; so Colville never doubted but that they were Hindoos--perhaps camp-followers--and Hindoos they certainly were.