, is this the way you treat your nation's
guests? To hell with you! we parley not with base-born churls!"

And now, again, when all the Englishmen were dead, the voices cried:
"Why fight any longer? Your sahibs are killed. Save yourselves, and
surrender, before you are all killed. We will give you quarter." Left in
command was Jemadar Jewand Singh, a splendid Sikh officer of the Guides'
cavalry, and not one whit behind his British officers in brave resolve.
He deigned no word of answer to the howling crowd without, but to the
few brave survivors within, perhaps a dozen or so, he said: "The Sahibs
gave us this duty to perform, to defend this Residency to the last.
Shall we then disgrace the cloth we wear by disobeying their orders now
they are dead? Shall we hand over the property of the Sirkar, and the
dead bodies of our officers, to these sons of perdition? I for one
prefer to die fighting for duty and the fame of the Guides, and they
that will do likewise follow me." Then, as the evening closed, went
forth unhurried the last slender forlorn hope. The light of the setting
sun fell kindly on those grim and rugged faces, out of which all anger
and excitement and passion had passed away: they were marching out to
die, and they knew it. One last glimpse we have of their gallant end.
From a window hard by an old soldier pensioner, himself a prisoner, saw,
and bore witness, that the leader of those pathetic few, fighting with
stern and steadfast courage, killed eight assailants before he himself,
the last to fall, was overborne.

And so staunchly fighting they died to a man, that gallant group,--died
to live for ever. But round them lay heaped six hundred dead, as silent
witnesses of twelve hours' heroic fight. The night fell, and darkness
and the silence of death succeeded the strife of a livelong summer's
day.

With that wise statesmanship for which the British Government may claim
its share, a national memorial was raised at Mardan to these deathless
heroes, and on it is written: _The annals of no army and no regiment can
show a brighter record of devoted bravery than has been achieved by this
small band of Guides_.

Yet another scene in the tragedy remains to be told. It is a cold bleak
day in early winter. On one side stand the blackened, bullet-riddled
ruins of the Residency, much as we saw them last. To the left, drawn up
as a guard, is a long double line of British soldiers with, bayonets
fixed. Behind them, cove