Then he found her a place from which she could see, as she insisted, the progress of the fight in the greatest safety, posted her doolie with its bearers behind, and left the faithful Gholam in charge of her. "I mayn't see you again," he said, taking her hand, "but word will be sent to him, and you must do as he tells you, as we may have to make a dash to get over to the Gul." "And if we're beaten will we go back?" she asked. He shook his head. "If we're beaten we shall die here," he said quietly. She held out her other hand to him. "I'm not afraid now," she said under her breath. An hour of anxious waiting followed, then the enemy's scouts began to appear on the road in the gap of the ridge that Dore was holding. As the ridge offered them no advantages and the searching of it entailed exposure, they kept to the lower ground and came on slowly on either side of the road. An advance-guard followed, and then a body of horsemen, the valley growing slowly brown with them. They halted with evident suspicion of Terrington's tactics, but came on again, reassured by the safety of the scouts, who were within a few yards of the lower sangars, before, following the signal stammer of the Maxim from the road, fire opened from the whole line at once upon the packed mass in the valley. The result should have been disastrous to the attackers had the shooting been even fairly accurate, which unfortunately it was not. The Dogras included a very small proportion of marksmen, and the Bakót men had not outlived their remembrance of the matchlock, and probably fired over the heads of everything. Some score of the scouts were turned over, and a few men and horses fell in the main body, chiefly to the Maxim. The remainder scampered for cover in all directions, followed by an independent fusillade which did very little harm. At the sound of the firing, reinforcements began to pour through the gap above which the Sikhs lay, silent but excited spectators, and in a very short time the attack was more cautiously renewed. The high ground which Terrington was holding on either wing converged forward from his centre, so that the Saris in trying to force the road found themselves exposed to a crescent of fire, and after a vain attempt to rush the Maxim, fell back, and by creeping up the sides of the valley began a movement to outflank him from above. For this they only needed time to be successful, as the defenders' line was already stretched beyond the limits of safety, and Terrington watched with varying anxiety the progress of this movement, the gathering mass of the enemy on the road beneath him, and the slow closing up of the Guides in his rear.