But scarcely had he announced this consoling intelligence, when the sound of firing was heard to issue from the direction in which the British troops were bivouacked. By the order of the General, Captain Johnson had written to Brigadier Anquetil, upon whom now, as senior officer, the command of the force had devolved, directing him to have the troops in readiness to march at eight o’clock on the following morning. But the letter had not been despatched when the firing was heard, and it became evident that the British troops were again on the move. It was about eight o’clock, on the evening of the 12th, that the few remaining men—now reduced to about a hundred and twenty of the 44th, and twenty-five artillerymen—prepared to resume their perilous march. The curse of camp-followers clung to them still. The teeming rabble again came huddling against the fighting men; and the Afghans, taking advantage of the confusion, stole in, knife in hand, amongst them, destroying all the unarmed men in their way, and glutting themselves with plunder. They did not, this time, escape. The soldiers turned and bayoneted the plunderers; and fought their way bravely on. But there was a terrible fate awaiting them as they advanced. The Jugdulluck Pass was before them. The road ascends between the steep walls of this dark precipitous defile, and our wretched men struggled onward, exposed to the fire of the enemy, till on nearing the summit they came suddenly upon a barricade, and were thrown back in surprise and dismay. The enemy had blocked up the mouth of the pass. Barriers, made of bushes and the branches of trees, opposed the progress of the column, and threw the whole into inextricable confusion. The camp-followers crowded upon the soldiers, who, in spite of the overwhelming superiority of the enemy, fought with a desperate valour worthy of a better fate. The Afghans had been lying in wait for the miserable remnant of the British army, and were now busy with their cruel knives and their unerring jezails. The massacre was something terrible to contemplate. Officers, soldiers, and camp-followers were stricken down at the foot of the barricade. A few, strong in the energy of desperation, managed to struggle through it. But from that time all hope was at an end. There had ceased to be a British army.