Though sick and feeble, Denzil contrived to draw the dhooley a little way from the body of its late occupant, and crept within it for warmth. Prior to doing so, on seeing near him the Queen's colour of the 44th, or East Essex Regiment, lying in the hands of a dead ensign, he tore it from the staff and wrapped it over his poshteen, as an additional garment, and with a soldier's natural desire to save so important a trophy from the enemy. To this trifling circumstance, as it eventually proved, he owed his life; and there he lay in a species of stupor, neither quite asleep nor quite awake. Ere long the hungry vultures began to alight upon the bodies in the snow, and one, after flapping its dusky wings on the roof of the dhooley, actually perched upon his breast; but on receiving a blow from his hand, it fled with an angry croak. Denzil was now thoroughly aroused, and his action would seem to have been observed, for twelve Afghan horsemen who had been scouting near, each with a juzailchee riding _en croupe_ behind him, came cantering up, accompanied by, or rather escorting, Shireen Khan of the Kuzzilbashes, who was mounted, as usual, on a great solemn-looking camel, and armed, among many other weapons, with a formidable lance. Seeing that Denzil was alive, one of the Kuzzilbashes (a pale-faced and black-bearded fellow, who wore a prodigious red cap, and had dangling at his neck the watch presented to General Trecarrel by Sir John Keane, after Ghuzni) made a thrust with his lance that must have killed him on the spot had not the Khan interposed, and commanded all to spare his life. Instinctively Denzil had drawn his sword, but Shireen said, with a grim smile, "Sheath your weapon, Kaffir; I, too, wear a sword, but I am an old man now, old by more than thrice your years, and I have learned to know that the sword is but the sickle of death--it destroys much and reaps little." Denzil thought this moral reflection came somewhat late, but the Khan added-- "Your life shall be spared--_pesh_" (_i.e._, forward), and stroked his beard, which is the silent form of an oath with the Afghans.