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The rifles were truly formidable, being repeating weapons each capable of firing ten shots without reloading. The barrels were not very long, measuring only three feet from breech to muzzle, but they were of one- and-a-half-inch bore and fired a conical shell four and a half inches in length.
"We know nothing of the ground over which we should have to crawl, and it would be hardly possible for thirty men with our accouterments, and firearms to crawl along without snapping sticks, or striking rifles against a stone and giving the alarm. "No, the sentry at the entrance of the village must be silenced."
A mace, and two long three-cornered-headed pikes, with ash handles, strong, and light at the same time; spotted with lately-shed blood, complete the armory, modernized somewhat by the presence of two Tyrolese rifles, loaded and primed.
"We call it `cat' for shortness' sake. Its common name is a `catamount, or, more properly, an `ocelot." The hounds, who well knew where the ocelot had gone to, were chasing it from tree to tree; but still it continued to elude them. All we could do was to stand by with our rifles ready to shoot the creature, should it burst forth into the open.
There were some in that force who were ready for the reputation of the British army, and for the sake of an example of military virtue, to die stolidly where they stood, or to lead the 'Faugh-a-ballagh' boys, or the gallant 28th, in one last death-charge with empty rifles against the unseen enemy. They may have been right, these stalwarts.
The strength of the whole division came to over ten thousand rifles, and in its ranks there rode the hardiest and best from every corner of the earth over which the old flag is flying. A word as to the general distribution of the troops at this instant while Roberts was gathering himself for his spring. Eleven divisions of infantry were in the field.
The men standing in front of their tents: STRIKE TENTS. Equipments and rifles are removed from the tent; the tents are lowered, packs made up, and equipments slung, and the men stand at attention in the places originally occupied after taking intervals. For pyramidal tents the interval between adjacent pins should be about 30 feet, which will give a passage of 2 feet between tents.
For these are the only days in the week when the Khyber can be safely entered. The British then turn out the Khyber Rifles and man every crag, and the loaded caravans move like a tide, and go up and down the narrow road on their occasions. Naturally mere sightseers are not welcomed, for much business must be got through in that urgent forty eight hours in which life is not risked in entering.
The droning of voices again arose from great blue crowds. The odour of frying bacon, the fragrance from countless little coffee-pails floated among the ruins. The rifles, stacked in the shadows, emitted flashes of steely light. Wherever a a flag lay horizontally from one stack to another was the bed of an eagle which had led men into the mystic smoke.
And there was more than a smacking in the way she said it. Jed offered to clasp hands, but I shook my head. "Run for it," I said. And while we hotfooted it across the sand it seemed all the rifles on Indian hill were turned loose on us. I got to the spring a little ahead, so that Jed had to wait for me to fill my pails.
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