'After forming my company I drew near her, and made some commonplace remark, to which she replied in the same tone. I failed to catch the expression of her face, as a thick Shetland veil was tied over it. How little could I think that it was concealing tears! Suddenly Sale's bugler sounded; the adjutant was about to tell off the battalion. I pressed her hand; she returned the pressure firmly, and her voice as she said "Good-bye" was utterly broken, and seemed to be full of tears. I never, never forgot _that_; but this was no time for explanation. I rushed to join my company, and all that followed passed like a dream. The brigade was wheeled into line--it broke into sections--the bands struck up, and the homeward march for England, as all our fellows fondly hoped, began; and ere long, as we penetrated into the dark recesses of the mountains, we saw the last of Cabul and all our companions. 'I had but one thought--that Mabel Berriedale was there, and that I should never see her again! 'Even the armed clans of Afghans that were seen hovering so menacingly on the rocks that overhung the passes could not draw my thoughts from Mabel, the pressure of her beloved hand, and her tearful voice, when it was too late--all too late! 'The following night some wounded fugitives brought dreadful tidings to Cabul. Sale's brigade, they asserted, had been attacked in the passes and literally cut to pieces; how Sale himself and Colonel Dennie had been wounded, and Lieutenant Clinton of the 13th had been cut off, with a whole line of skirmishers, by the Khyberees under Zemaun Khan. 'My poor Mabel fell fainting on Bella's breast when she heard of all this, and she now for the first time knew, what I knew not, and never might know, how really dear I was to her. The startling tidings brought to Cabul were not without some grains of truth. 'Hardy and trained, the 13th, or Prince Albert's Own, marched speedily and splendidly, setting an example to the rest of the brigade, and their chorusing merrily woke the echoes of the impending rocks; but no actual hostility was displayed by the warlike denizens of these until the troops were fairly entangled in the deepest, steepest, and most perilous parts of the passes. '_Then_ the cliffs above us seemed to become suddenly alive with men, chiefly yellow-turbaned Khyberees, who opened a storm of fire upon us that told with dreadful effect, strewing the whole tortuous path from front to rear with killed and wounded. So skilful too were these Afghans in the art of skirmishing, that save for the red flash of their matchlocks streaking the gloom, it was impossible to detect where the marksmen lay. Rocks and simple stones--some not larger than a 13-inch shell, sufficed to shelter the lurking juzailchee, who squatted down, showing, if anything, only the long barrel of his deadly weapon, and the tip of his turban. Then might be seen the hardihood, and the majesty, with which a British soldier fights!