At midnight the ravine leading up to the Spingawi Pass was reached; but so dark was it that the 2nd Punjaubees, separated by a few yards from the regiment in front of them, marched straight on instead of turning up it; and the 22nd Pioneers, and the four artillery guns carried on elephants--being behind them--naturally went astray, also. Brigadier General Thelwall, who commanded the column, was at the head of his brigade; and was, for some time, unaware of the absence of two of his regiments but, after halting and finding that they did not come up, sent back a mounted officer who, after a two-mile ride, came up with the missing troops, and guided them back to the point where they had left the route. From the foot of the ravine to the top of the pass is six miles in distance and, dark as it was in the open, it was still more so in the ravine, shadowed by the steep hills on either side. As the ascent continued the road became worse; the boulders being larger, and the holes and dried-up pools deeper. The darkness, and the prevailing white color of the stones, prevented the difference of level being observed; and many of the men had heavy falls, as the steep sides of these pools were often from two to four feet deep. After marching for a mile and a half up the ravine, the report of a rifle was heard in the ranks of the 29th Punjaubees--who were leading the column--followed instantly by another discharge. Colonel Gordon--commanding the regiment--halted; and he and the general tried, in vain, to discover who had fired. No one could, or would, identify them; and this seemed clearly to prove that the rifles had been fired as a signal to the enemy, for they had not been loaded before the column started. The Punjaubee regiments contained many hill tribesmen--men closely connected, by ties of blood and religion, with the enemy whom they were marching to attack. A non-commissioned officer and several of the men, who were just about the spot where the guns had been fired, were placed under arrest and sent back. It was afterwards found that two of their rifles had been discharged; and the men who fired, and their non-commissioned officer were tried by court martial for treachery, and were hung. After these men had been sent back, the 5th Ghoorkas, the company of Rangers, and two companies of the 72nd passed the 23rd Punjaubees, and took their places at the head of the column. In the course of the march a good many other men of the 23rd left the column, in the dark, and made their way back to camp. It turned out, afterwards, that the Afghan sentries at the top of the pass heard the reports, and woke up the commander of the post; who, hearing no further cause of alarm, took no action in the matter. Had the traitors waited until the column was within a mile of the top of the pass, the Afghans would assuredly have taken the alarm but, firing at a distance of four and a half miles, they failed in the desired effect.