Thus the position remained until late in the afternoon. From the trench in front of the shrine, and from the conical hill we saw the enemy in retreat toward To-wan. A long line of ambulance wagons stretched beyond the white tower; behind them marched infantry and cavalry in close order; and in the rear waited a strong force of infantry and cavalry with half a battery. They were guarding the exit from the valley along which strolled an occasional soldier with a gait as leisurely and a manner as indifferent as though these were manœuvres instead of war. At any sign of advance by the Japanese, the infantry at the entrance to the valley formed up to oppose them, and the guns were unlimbered and trained. This sufficed; the Japanese were not strong enough to force an attack home. Here was the moment when one realised the importance of horse artillery. A single battery well handled would have turned this deliberate retirement into a stampede. The pursuit was not pressed, and the army of General Keller drew off with a final cannonade directed against our right. Away on our right flank was enacted a dramatic episode that might have been a tragedy. In order to avoid the Pass the Russians had made a road which sweeps round the North spur of the mountain, following the plain from a point near Lien-chen-kwan to the road leading to Am-ping. By this way came a force of the enemy. At a point six miles north of Mou-tien-ling they met a Japanese outpost of one company. Though greatly outnumbered, the outpost realising the importance of its position, withstood the onslaught. Hemmed in by six companies they fought as Japanese soldiers always fight--with the coolness and skill of veterans, and the courage of fanatics. Closer and closer drew the enemy until the struggle was almost hand to hand. Numbers could not avail against courage so desperate. The Russians retreated, leaving their dead and wounded, and our right flank was safe. But the cost was great to this gallant company. All the officers were killed or wounded, and of the rank and file twenty were killed and forty-five wounded. There was a moment when the position on our left flank in the Pass looked not less critical, for the enemy came within eight hundred yards and had good cover. But reinforcements arrived and that interval was soon a glacis of bullets across which no troops, however desperate, could have passed.