In this spirit Roland went on, but keeping his skirmishers well in hand, till they reached the high rocks in front, when they rushed between or over them; and there Colonel Eyre, a noble, veteran officer, and remarkably handsome man, who, though a gentleman by birth, had risen from the ranks in the Crimea--then as now conspicuous for his bravery--fell at the head of his beloved South Staffordshire while attacking the second ridge, 'where, behind some giant boulders, the Sheikh Moussa Abu Hagil was with his Robatat tribe--the most determined of the Arab race.' The good Colonel was pausing for a moment beside two of his wounded men. 'Colonel Eyre took one of them by the hand,' wrote an officer whom we are tempted to quote, 'to comfort him a little. A minute after he turned to me and said: "I am a dead man!" I saw a mark below his shoulder, and said: "No, you are not." He looked at me for a second, and said: "Lord, have mercy upon me--God help my poor wife!" ... He was dead in a minute after he was hit, and did not appear to suffer, the shock being so great. The bullet entered the right breast, and came out under the left shoulder.' Like a roaring wave the infuriated Staffordshire went on, and then the Robatat tribe were assailed by two companies of the Highlanders, led by their Colonel and General Earle in person. 'The Black Watch advanced over rocks and broken ground upon the Koppies,' says Lord Wolseley's very brief despatch, 'and, after having by their fire in the coolest manner driven off a rush of the enemy, stormed the position under a heavy fire.' But desperate was the struggle prior to this. The Arabs, from the cover of every rock and boulder, poured in a fire with the most murderous precision, while our soldiers flung themselves headlong at any passage or opening they found, no matter how narrow or steep. Like wild tigers in their lair, the Arabs fought at bay, having everywhere the advantage of the ground, and inspired by a fury born of fanaticism and religious rancour, resolute to conquer or die; but in spite of odds and everything, our soldiers stormed rock after rock, and fastness after fastness, working their way on by bayonet and bullet, the Black Watch on the left, the old 38th on the right, upward and onward, over rocks slippery with dripping blood, over the groaning, the shrieking, the dying, and the dead. Here fell Wilton and merry Dick Mostyn, both mortally wounded, rolling down the rocks to die in agony; and to Roland it was evident that Jack Elliot was bitterly intent on throwing his life away if he could, for he rushed, sword in hand, at any loophole in the rocks from whence a puff of smoke or flash of fire spirted out.