“We got in sight of the place early the next morning.  You know how it lies, on a spur halfway between the big hills, and as we began to appreciate how wickedly quiet the village lay under the sunlight, we came to a stop to consider.

“At that they fired a lump of filed brass idol at us, just by way of a welcome.  It came twanging down the slope to the right of us where the boulders are, missed my shoulder by an inch or so, and plugged the mule that carried all the provisions and utensils.  I never heard such a death-rattle before or since.  And at that we became aware of a number of gentlemen carrying matchlocks, and dressed in things like plaid dusters, dodging about along the neck between the village and the crest to the east.

“‘Right about face,’ I said.  ‘Not too close together.’

“And with that encouragement my expedition of ten men came round and set off at a smart trot down the valley again hitherward.  We did not wait to save anything our dead had carried, but we kept the second mule with us—­he carried my tent and some other rubbish—­out of a feeling of friendship.

“So ended the battle—­ingloriously.  Glancing back, I saw the valley dotted with the victors, shouting and firing at us.  But no one was hit.  These Chins and their guns are very little good except at a sitting shot.  They will sit and finick over a boulder for hours taking aim, and when they fire running it is chiefly for stage effect.  Hooker, one of the Derbyshire men, fancied himself rather with the rifle, and stopped behind for half a minute to try his luck as we turned the bend.  But he got nothing.

“I’m not a Xenophon to spin much of a yarn about my retreating army.  We had to pull the enemy up twice in the next two miles when he became a bit pressing, by exchanging shots with him, but it was a fairly monotonous affair—­hard breathing chiefly—­until we got near the place where the hills run in towards the river and pinch the valley into a gorge.  And there we very luckily caught a glimpse of half a dozen round black heads coming slanting-ways over the hill to the left of us—­the east that is—­and almost parallel with us.

“At that I called a halt.  ‘Look here,’ says I to Hooker and the other Englishmen; ‘what are we to do now?’ and I pointed to the heads.

“‘Headed orf, or I’m a nigger,’ said one of the men.

“‘We shall be,’ said another.  ‘You know the Chin way, George?’

“‘They can pot every one of us at fifty yards,’ says Hooker, ’in the place where the river is narrow.  It’s just suicide to go on down.’

“I looked at the hill to the right of us.  It grew steeper lower down the valley, but it still seemed climbable.  And all the Chins we had seen hitherto had been on the other side of the stream.

“‘It’s that or stopping,’ says one of the Sepoys.