to us but to await the designs of slow-moving Fate.
Three of our ponies, having nothing else to do, had now died. The others were festering racks, their proper sores having spread and grown more malignant under the pack-saddles, which Mir Mullah had not removed during the whole period of inactivity. Anginieur was still a prisoner to his leg, charging himself at times with being a burden upon the move, which now, he thought, we ought to attempt. But it was not difficult to convince him that, without a single horse that could carry a burden, we were not all tied to his leg, but that all were separately tied to our desolate prison ground in a common inability to cope with conditions all awry.
The eleventh day wore away to its afternoon ; for distraction it was suggested that the fishes be bombarded behind their ice-fortress. Perhaps our smooth-bore, belching out duck-shot, would break the ice, and repeated cannonading might somehow reach the finny garrison. Three futile shots had set the echoes ringing, when to ! an answering, distant sound rolled up from the valley's hidden stretch below us. The long strain was ended. That single rifle-shot meant life. Then masters and men looked into each other's eyes as brothers and strained away their gaze toward the black cliff which closed the down-stream view. When the sober, silent joy of first relief had changed to laughing gaiety that felt its right to live, our anxious watch discovered two horsemen urging up the valley. In half an hour they were at our sides, the faithful two, weary with
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