These, however, would not be denied. The massacre of the mission at Cabul had infuriated the soldiers, and each man was animated with a stern determination to avenge our murdered countrymen. For an hour and a half the fight continued; and then the Afghans abandoned the ridge, and fled in confusion. They rallied upon some low hills, 600 yards from the rear; but the mountain guns and Gatlings opened upon them and, the whole line advancing to the attack, the enemy fell back. Major White's column had been doing excellent service, on the right. Although the attack had been intended only as a feint, it was pushed forward so vigorously that it met with a success equal to that which had attended the main column, on the left. The enemy were driven off the hills on the right of the defile. Twenty guns were captured, and the direct road cleared of the enemy. Unfortunately, our cavalry was in the rear. The road through the pass was difficult and, before they could get through into the plain on the other side, the masses of Afghans had fallen back into the strong villages scattered over it; and could not be attacked by cavalry, alone. The enemy had from 9000 to 10,000 men upon the ridge, including thirteen regiments of regular troops. They left 300 dead upon the field and, besides these, carried off large numbers of killed and wounded, during the night. Upon our side only 20 were killed, and 67 wounded. Had General Roberts had his whole force with him, he could--after capturing the hills--have at once pushed forward, and have attacked the enemy on the plain; and the Afghans, disheartened and panic stricken, would have been completely crushed. With so small a force in hand, and the possibility of a serious attack by the tribes on his rear, General Roberts did not think it prudent to advance farther; and the regiments which had taken the principal part in the massacre of Cabul marched away, unmolested. Enormously superior as they still were in numbers, they had no thought of further resistance. The capture of positions which they deemed impregnable, by a force so inferior in number to their own, had utterly disheartened them; and the Heratee regiments which, but the day before, had been so proudly confident of their ability to exterminate the Kaffirs, were now utterly demoralized and panic stricken. In the night the whole of the Afghan troops scattered, and fled. Our cavalry--under General Massy--swept along the plain of Cabul and, skirting the town, kept on as far as the Ameer's great entrenched camp at Sherpur, three miles further along the valley. Here 75 guns were captured. In the morning, Macpherson arrived. General Roberts now advanced with his whole force of infantry, and found that he had no longer a foe before him. The Afghan army had disappeared.