The company had lost comparatively few men in the campaign, for it had taken no part in the various sieges.

Its duties, however, were severe in the extreme.
The men were ever on the watch, scouting the country round, while the army was engaged in siege operations, sometimes ascending mountains whence they could command views over the interior or pursuing bands of tribesmen to their refuges among the hills.
Severely as Malchus had trained himself in every exercise, he found it at first difficult to support the fatigues of such a life; but every day his muscles hardened, and by the end of the campaign he was able to keep on foot as long as the hardest of his men.
One day he had followed a party of the tribesmen far up among the mountains.

The enemy had scattered, and the Arabs in their hot pursuit had also broken up into small parties.

Malchus kept his eye upon the man who appeared to be the chief of the enemy's party, and pressing hotly upon him brought him to bay on the face of a steep and rugged gorge.
Only one of the Numidians was at hand, a man named Nessus, who was greatly attached to his young leader, and always kept close to him in his expeditions.

The savage, a bulky and heavy man, finding he could no longer keep ahead of his fleet footed pursuers, took his post at a narrow point in the path where but one could oppose him; and there, with his heavy sword drawn, he awaited the attack.