To avoid all suspicion or attention _en route_, Waller and Shakespere had cast their uniforms aside, and rode at their head _à la Kussilbashe_, dressed in poshteen and chogah, and armed with lance and sabre. The discovery of Rose Trecarrel--an event so unexpected and unlooked for after all that had occurred--seemed to Waller as an omen of future good fortune, and his naturally buoyant spirits rose as he rode on. The expedition was full of excitement, especially for a time: it was an act of courage, mercy, and chivalry, that all Britain should eventually hear of; and Mabel was at the bourne, for which they were all bound. Even poor Denzil, so recently interred, was partially forgotten: soldiers cannot brood long over the casualties of war, especially while amid them; and Denzil's death was only one item in a strife that had now seen nearly fifty thousand perish on both sides. However, let it not for a moment be thought that Waller was careless of his friend's untimely end, his memory, or his strange story; for, ere he left Rose, he had promised that as soon as he could write, or get "down country" again, one of his first acts should be to seek out and succour "this only sister" of whom poor Devereaux had always spoken so much and so affectionately. When he parted from Rose, leaving her in the safe and more congenial protection afforded by the European camp, she had not been without one predominant fear. As friends had come too late to save or succour Denzil, they might now, perhaps, be too late to rescue Mabel and her companions from this new conjunction of enemies against them, even in Toorkistan. Besides, Ackbar the Terrible, with the ruins of his infuriated army, was to fall back on the deserts by the way of Bameean, and thus, to avoid him, the two British officers, with their Kuzzilbashes, at one time made a judicious detour among the hills. At Killi-Hadji, they found traces of the first halt made by the caravan outside the old fort, where a shepherd had, as he told them, seen the captives; thence by the mountain pass and the fair valley of Maidan, where a Hadji bound afoot for the shrine of Ahmed Shah at Candahar, the scene of many a pilgrimage, told them that the risk they ran was great, as the Hazarees were undoubtedly drawing to a head in the Balkh; and this was far from reassuring, as they were conscious of having far outridden their promised supports. "Let us push on, for God's sake!" was ever Waller's impatient exclamation at every halt, however brief; and even Sir Richmond Shakespere, with all his activity and energy, was at times amused by the restlessness of one who seemed by nature to be a rather quiet and easy-going Englishman. "These are tough rations, certainly," said he, as they halted for the last time near the Kaloo Mountain, and masticated a piece of kid broiled on a ramrod at a hasty fire (broiled ere the flesh of the shot animal had time to cool), and washed it down by a draught from the nearest stream.