heir way
through the huddling mass of the enemy. Then clearing, they wheeled
about, and with unabated fury fell again upon the benumbed and paralysed
foe. Not yet content, the heroic Khuttuk again called on his men for
another effort, and, rallying and wheeling about, the weary troopers
and still wearier horses once more rode down into the stricken mass. But
"God preserve us from these fiends," muttered the demoralised Sikhs,
and, assisting their deity to answer the pious prayer, the whole mass
broke and fled, pursued up to the very walls of Mooltan by "that thrice
accursed son of perdition, Fatteh Khan, Khuttuk," and the remnants of
his seventy Guides.

Through the intense heat of the summer of 1848 the little cluster of
English officers who stood for British dominion kept heart and energy in
the siege of Mooltan. As Edwardes described the position, it was only a
terrier watching a tiger; but it was at any rate a good stout-hearted
English terrier, and the tiger was afraid to face it. Yet even this
stout terrier had to give way a little, when no reinforcements arrived,
and when, in September, Sher Sing, with three thousand four hundred
cavalry and nine hundred infantry, deserted and went over to the enemy.

The siege, however, was only temporarily raised, and was at once resumed
on the arrival of a column of Bombay troops. This reinforcement
consisted of two British infantry regiments, five Native infantry
regiments, and three regiments of Native cavalry. With his force thus
strengthened General Whish immediately resumed the offensive, and not
only renewed the siege, but determined to take the place by assault. In
the furtherance of this project he first stormed and captured the city,
many of the buildings in which completely dominated the fort at short
effective ranges. From the coigns of vantage thus gained the British
artillery and infantry poured a hail of shot and shell into the doomed
defences, while the cavalry hovered outside ready to pounce on those who
broke cover. Placed in these desperate straits, and without hope of
succour, Diwan Mulraj and the whole of his force surrendered
unconditionally on the 22nd of January, 1849, after a siege which had
lasted nearly seven months.

This timely success released at a critical moment, for service
elsewhere, the British forces engaged in the siege. For meanwhile great
events had been happening in the upper Punjab, and great were yet to
come. On January 13th had been