The rest of the retreat, the cold neglect with which the Government of India tried to treat the little force, the angry expostulation of the Press of England, and the tardy honours, are they not written in the book of the Rulers of India, and in the heart of a people that does not forget?
But with his crossing of the Palári, Terrington's achievement ceases. The rest was mere marching. Thanks, indeed, to his diplomacy it was mere marching, and that not a sword was drawn against him on the road home. But he thought little of such success; he had a natural capacity, he said, for creating false impressions.
He came very near incapacity during the first day of the descent: for his vigil of the night before had cost him the use of both his arms and legs. Rose prayed him to be carried in her doolie, but he knew the effect the breakdown of his seemingly unassailable strength would have upon his men, and had himself tied upon the back of his little pony, and led, with no slackening for his infirmities, wherever his encouragement or his counsel was required.
The perpetual jogging down-hill was, in his condition, not a bad imitation of martyrdom, which, in his heart he bore as deserved for having spent his strength upon a woman instead of for his men.
But the power came back to his arms by the way, perhaps from sheer pain; and the use he found for them at the end of the day, when, though still in the snow, the weary little band gathered warm and happy about fires of fir, certainly suggested no regrets to the woman they enfolded.