'Cheerily rang out the bugles of the 13th, for "the leading companies to extend," and away the skirmishers swept over the precipices, scouring the terrible hills on the right and left, using the bayonet wherever an opportunity served; and driving back the wild mountaineers, till, just as night was closing in, we came in sight of a mighty barricade of earth, stones and turf, built right across the narrow pass, for the purpose of cutting off all further passage or progress. 'Sale, who was suffering acutely from a ball in his leg, gave the order to storm it, and just as, with a loud cheer, the leading companies assailed it with a headlong rush, a ball struck me in the left ankle, and my shako flew off; an invocation to heaven escaped me, I fell heavily, my head came in contact with the rocks, and insensibility rendered me oblivious alike of peril and agony, as our men swept over me to storm the barrier, which they did brilliantly, fairly opening up a passage to Boothak, and carrying off all their wounded save me. I had fallen unseen, and in the dark was left behind, while the flashing and reports of the musketry died out in the distance. 'Bitter and terrible were my first emotions, when the falling dew roused me in that savage place; bleeding, helpless, unable to stand or crawl, a prey it might soon be to Afghan knives, or the teeth of those wild animals which would soon scent the dead that lay around me. I was not left long to reflect. I had just bandaged my wounded limb with my handkerchief, when a party of Afghans passed. One uttered a hoarse cry, and was about to decapitate me by one slash, when another interposed, and I found myself the prisoner of Zemaun Khan. '"Death to the Feringhee!" cried the astonished Afghans. '"Hold, I command you!" said Zemaun; "he is my brother." '"Is he not one of those who would send our chiefs in chains to the Queen of the Feringhees in London?" '"He is my brother!" 'By his order I was conveyed, not unkindly, to a solitary round tower among the mountains, where I remained a prisoner for longer than I care to remember, with the terrible consciousness that I might be murdered at any moment of caprice, or kept a life-long captive, forgotten by all, while Mabel Berriedale became the wife of Jack Villars, or some one else. 'My adventures after this were so numerous that they would crowd a three volume novel. 'The ball in my ankle I contrived to snip out myself, nearly fainting as I did so. I then bound up the wound, which grew well rapidly; while that in my head was bathed and bandaged tenderly by the deft little hand of the wife of Zemaun Khan, who was full of pity for, me, with much of gratitude for the service I had done her, and thus I had perhaps more of her society than the Khan might have relished; but he had much wild work to do among the mountains, and it was from her that I heard of what was doing at Cabul.