"You need send back word of nothing," said Terrington, "we overlook your position. Keep your men where they are, no matter what force may pass you, and don't fire a shot till you get the signal." This laying of a line of fire across the neck of the defile had been Terrington's last piece of daring, to cover the chance of Mir Khan's detaching a force to search the Sar road strong enough to pen the British troops in the defile and prevent their issuing to fall upon the flank of the men engaging Walcot beyond the Gul. Terrington realized the possibility of such a move on seeing the size of the force which the Khan had so unexpectedly collected, and added at once this risk the more to the many he was taking in order to make the enemy's defeat sufficiently disastrous to deter him for a few hours from pursuit. He nodded a farewell to Dore, lifted Rose into the saddle, and walked back beside her. She leant forward to pat the mare's neck and get a side view of his face. "Are you awfully excited?" she asked shyly. His thoughtful eyes came round to her. "Awfully!" he said, smiling. He signed to the doolie to follow them, and led the way back along the road, which rose slowly for about a mile. There was nowhere any sign of life, and the fight and the scene behind them seemed suddenly to have passed out of being. They went a little way in silence, and then Rose Chantry said gravely: "Captain Terrington, do you _really_ think we shall beat them?" He put a hand on the saddle behind her. "Are you afraid, child?" he asked. She nodded pensively. "I can't help it," she broke out with a sort of petulance; "I do so love being alive: and I've had so little of it; only just the last few years." He looked up into her face, with its gay air of beauty softened and sobered by the thought of death. "Yes," he said, "I understand." She searched his expression doubtfully. "Only for _me_?" she questioned. "Oh, _I'm_ not a lovely woman," he smiled. "Who told you that _I_ was?" she asked him. "Ah! I've found it out for myself," he sighed. "Have you?" she said without conviction. "And aren't _you_ afraid to die?" "A man has to be afraid of other things more," he told her quietly. A sharp turn of the road brought them suddenly into the Dogra's camp. Though no fires were burning the men were round their cooking-pots finishing a meal; food and sleep in Terrington's conception going half way always towards winning a fight. He lifted Rose out of the saddle, asked her if she were equal to a climb, and together they clambered up the ridge of shale on the north of the valley at the head of which Hussain Shah had his post of observation.