"Tell him they're right down here in front of us," she heard Dore's voice in a hard whisper. "And take that doolie back," he added angrily. The doolie spun round, but before it was gone a hundred yards Rose stopped the bearers. The morning was gray, cold, and very still, just after dawn. A white wet mist had come down upon the hills, and hung from cliff to cliff like a ceiling cloth across the valley. Ahead, laid out behind boulders of blue grey stone, she could see the yellowish attenuated line of Dore's Sikhs spread like a fan on either side of the road. A runner, naked but for his loin-cloth, and throwing up the dust from the soles of his feet, went by towards the front, coming back somewhat less hurriedly ten minutes later. There was no further sound nor sign of life for half an hour, and then Terrington with an orderly came in view round the bend of the road riding slowly. He stopped with a smile of wonder where Rose was sitting on a stone before her doolie at the side of the road. "However did you get here?" he asked. "Mr. Dore sent me back," she pouted. "Sent you _back_!" he echoed. "I should think he did." She came up to his horse's shoulder, and with a "Good morning," offered him her hand. "Is it going to be a fight?" she asked as he took it. "It is," he answered, "and you're in front of the firing line. You must wait here till I return to you." She stood back demurely with her hands behind her, and he rode on with some injunction to her sentry which she did not understand. He was met, she saw, by Dore near the line of skirmishers, and in obedience to some command the section on either side of the road turned outwards and began to creep up the steep sides of the valley, taking cover, when they halted, so effectively that not a man was to be seen. Just as the last of them had disappeared a rifle rang out, faintly, far ahead. Rose, who had not taken her eyes from Terrington, stiffened at the sound, and stood tensely listening with an ear towards it. She had to wait a full five minutes till the shot was repeated, but hard upon that followed the soft rattle of a fusillade. Though it sounded vague and dull as the patter of rain on water, she knew it at once for what it was, and started forward eagerly towards it along the road. The sentry, mindful of Terrington's injunction, tried to stop her, but she ordered him to stand aside with such imperious authority that he gave way, and Rose went on towards the spot where Terrington was posted above the road with his glasses raised. He was so absorbed in the scene they gave him that he did not hear Mrs. Chantry's approach, and was only aware of her presence beside him when he turned to search for the Sikhs upon the hill. He lowered his glasses sharply and faced her with a frown. "I told you to wait for me," he said reprovingly.