'My comrade, Toby Chace, Captain Colville,' said Wodrow; 'he is like myself, a reduced gentleman, and will die, I hope, a baronet.' 'I am not in a hurry about that,' said Toby, and, as Colville bowed to him, he saluted again, and proffered his brandy-flask, a silver hunting one, on which a coat of arms was engraved--a relic of better days at Melton and elsewhere. 'I have only a ration biscuit to offer you, sir,' said Toby, laughing; 'but once into Cabul, we shall have luxuries galore--_cotelettes de mouton à l'Ameer_--mutton chops and green chillis. And now to deliver my report!' he added, and, putting spurs to his horse, rode off in the direction of Kushi, while Colville and Robert Wodrow followed him as fast as they could. There was no time to be lost now, as the events of the day were rapidly developing themselves. Colville reported himself to General Baker (whose brigade was coming on), and joined that officer's staff, on procuring arms, while Wodrow bade him farewell, and joined the squadron of Lancers to which he was attached. Captain Apperley's command of the latter he had now dismounted, and posted in a shallow ditch that surrounded a square mud fort, in which he placed the chargers. A range of steep hills rose in front of this improvised post, and through them lay the Sung-i-Navishta Pass--which means the 'Place of the Written Stone,' from an ancient Persian inscription carved on a mass of rock in the centre of the defile, stating that the road then had been made in the reign of Shah Jehan, who was crowned at Agra in 1628. Hills, steep, barren, and stony, were on the left of this post, and there were grey garden walls, from which the Afghans were firing briskly, but as most of their balls went into the air, it was evident that they were ignorant of how to sight the rifles they were handling. A small party of the 12th Bengal Cavalry dismounted, held a walled garden on the right of this post, and kept up a rattling carbine fire on the enemy, who took cover among ground so rough and broken that no cavalry in the saddle could act against them. To succour these advanced parties, whose posts were now enveloped in whirls of eddying smoke, streaked by incessant jets or flashes of fire, the Royal Artillery guns came on under Major Parry, with a wing of the Gordon Highlanders under Major Stewart White, with some of the 23rd Pioneers and two squadrons of the 5th Punjaub Cavalry, all sent by General Baker, who assigned to this mixed but slender force the severe task of carrying these garrisoned heights. Old Spatterdash as he went to the front had just time to wring Colville's hand and congratulate him, but in doing so reeled a little in his saddle. In fact, at that early hour he was still groggy from his potations over night, and said, in a feathery voice, 'S'cuse me, Colville, but that infernal bullet I got at Lucknow is troubling me as usual.'