As corps after corps came up and halted, friends and comrades could enquire as to who had been killed or lost on the march; wounded there could be none, as all who sank behind were certain to perish by cold or the long trenchant knives of the Afghans, who had a particular fancy for decapitating all the victims that fell into their hands. Officers and soldiers were alike maddened with fury against the infamous treachery of those who had been paid in such terms to let them and their families depart in peace; and on all sides were heard the bitterest execrations of Ackbar Khan and his adherents. These became mingled with loud lamentations and cries of despair, when husbands found that their wives, wives that their husbands, or parents that their children, had been lost--hopelessly lost--on that long and terrible path of death and suffering, which led down the mountains to the rear, a path where none might dare to return or search for those they loved. In cold and starvation those who had succeeded in bringing their little ones thus far on the way, could only pray, and weep the dire necessities of war, and marvel in their hearts if the time would ever come when swords should be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks, and "when nation shall not lift up the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." As yet, that piping time of peace seemed a long way off. A few sentinels were posted in the direction of the enemy, and their posts some of them never quitted alive, being found frozen and dead when the relief went round an hour after. A little fire was made for the ladies by burning Audley's pistol-case and an ammunition keg; and full of pity, compassion, and horror, that women delicately and tenderly nurtured as they had been, should be subjected to miseries such as these, Waller, Denzil, Ravelstoke, and a few others procured by great exertion a sepoy pall, or tent, from the back of a baggage pony that lay shot in the pass; and then, scraping away the snow, pitched it for their use. Therein, Mabel, Rose, and seven other ladies passed the night, nestling close together on a _xummul_, or coarse native blanket, with the skirts of their riding habits wrapped about their feet for warmth. Audley Trevelyan, General Trecarrel, and other mounted officers kept beside their horses for the same purpose; and muffled in their poshteens and blankets, Waller and Denzil lay to leeward of the ladies' tent as a shelter from the biting wind. So passed the remainder of the morning. When day began to dawn and the cold light stole down the mountains upon that melancholy bivouac, it was found that the Shah's 6th Regiment, six hundred strong, had gone off in the dark, deserting to the enemy with all their arms; but there was another circumstance which created greater alarm still among the Europeans. _Rose Trecarrel was missing_, and no trace of her could be found. CHAPTER XVIII. SPIRITED AWAY!