ults of Punialis and Tangiris from the east and
south. Having always been famous as an alarmist he put the right
interpretation on the business, and settled down to what he half hoped,
half feared, might be a great frontier war. The place was strong only
on the north side, and the defence was as much a question of engineering
as of war. His Sepoys toiled gallantly at the incomplete defences,
while the rest fought hand to hand--bayonet against knife, Metford
against Enfield--to cover their labour. He lost many men, but on the
evening of the next day he had the satisfaction of seeing the
fortifications complete, and he awaited a siege with equanimity, as he
was well victualled.

On the second night the enemy again attacked, but the moon was bright,
and they were no match for his sharpshooters. About two in the morning
they fell back, and for the next day it looked as if they proposed to
invest the garrison. But by the third evening they began to melt away,
taking with them such small plunder as they had won. Mackintosh, who
was a man of enterprise, told off a detachment for pursuit, and cursed
bitterly the fate which had broken his ankle with a rifle-bullet.

In the south along the railway the warnings came in good time. At Rawal
Pindi there was some small difficulty with native officials, a large
body of whom seemed to have unaccountably disappeared. This delayed for
some time the sending of a freight-train to Abbotabad, but by and by
substitutes were found, and the works left under guard. The telegram to
Peshawur found things in readiness there, for memories of old trouble
still linger, and people sleep lightly on that frontier. Word came of
native riots in the south, at Lahore and Amritsar, and the line of towns
which mark the way to Delhi. In some places extraordinary accidents
were reported. Certain officers had gone off on holiday and had not
returned; odd and unintelligible commands had come to perplex the minds
of others; whole camps were reported sick where sickness was least
expected. A little rising of certain obscure rivers had broken up an
important highway by destroying all the bridges save the one which
carried the railway. The whole north was on the brink of a sudden
disorganization, but the brink had still to be passed. It lay with its
masters to avert calamity; and its masters, going about with haggard
faces, prayed for daylight and a few hours to prepare.

George had sent his men to Khautmi before h