Exhausted by the prolonged strain of mind and body--"ready to drop," he tells us, "from the fatigue of one constant cheer"--Napier lay down in his cloak that night in the midst of the dead and dying. Terrible had been the slaughter. More than twelve hundred dead lay in the dry bed of the river immediately in front of where the British line had fought. The woods and surrounding ground held a vast number of bodies. It is estimated that not less than six or seven thousand Beloochees perished in the battle. On our own side the loss, though severe, was slight compared with that of the enemy. About two hundred and seventy of all ranks had been killed and wounded--more than one-seventh of the total number engaged. Of these, nineteen were officers--a third of the number on the ground. These figures give us a good measure of the fierce nature of the struggle, and of the bravery displayed on both sides; but the true lesson of such heroism was not noticed at the time, or rather was kept steadily out of sight by all save a few men, and that lesson was this, that good and courageous leadership means brave and victorious soldiers, and that bad leadership means cowardice and defeat. It was but a year before this day of heroes at Meanee that there had been whole days and weeks of cowardice at Cabul. Infantry, cavalry, artillery; arms, powder, and shot--all the same, yet all the difference between victory and defeat, between honour and dishonour in the two results. It was this fact above every other that caused the display of envious enmity from so many quarters towards Napier and his victory; the contrast was too glaring, the youngest soldier in the ranks could read it. But a year ago the world had beheld the most dishonourable and inglorious chapter of our military history enacted near the head waters of this same Indus river, and here, now, another hand playing the game with the self-same cards had won it against greater odds and braver enemies.