Believing he was about to be beheaded, the wretched Hindoo implored mercy. "Hold him fast," said Ackbar, baring his right arm to the elbow. "What, dog of an idolater, you wish to see the Feringhees, do you?" By two blows of his heavy sabre, which was inscribed by a verse from the Koran, he hacked off the feet of the Hindoo above the ankles, and said mockingly-- "_Now_ you may go where you will: throw him out of doors." Cast forth, faint and bleeding, the poor wretch, tore his turban-cloth into strips and staunched with them the hemorrhage, enabling him actually to crawl on his hands and knees to our outposts, where his appearance excited the bitterest feelings in the breasts of all the troops, European as well as native. Rumour stated that Ackbar Khan was filled with alarm and rage, either of which might prompt him to execute some of his terrible threats on the helpless hostages; and that he was prepared for any extremity, and to lay the land waste, was evinced by the alarming noises that were heard in the Passes, ere our march began, and by the sky above the mountain-tops being nightly reddened by the blaze of burning villages which he destroyed, so that neither food nor shelter might be found by an advancing foe. At the hill of Gundamuck, where there is a walled village surrounded by groves of cypresses, Waller saw, with some emotions of interest, the cave in which he lurked after the last fatal stand was made there, and vividly came back to memory the despair of the final struggle. As our troops began to penetrate into the recesses of those mountains, whose names and features were so calculated to inspire mournful thoughts in all who looked on them (for there had a British army marched in, never more to come forth, being literally swallowed up), they found, as before, the ferocious Ghilzies again in position, and in thousands ready to defend their native rocks with all their native ardour, inflamed by past triumph, the hopes of future plunder, by fanaticism and pleasant doses of bhang; and from steep to steep, and from ridge to ridge, from tree to tree, and hill to hill, they defended themselves, and fought or died with stubborn and resolute bravery, harassing our troops in front, in rear, and on both flanks. Yet on pushed our columns: the dying and the dead fell fast, and remained a ghastly train to mark the rearward route; but every life lost seemed but to add to the pluck and hardihood of the survivors.