HARLEY'S EXPLOIT. 459 ment of the men that Harley, with all his influence over them, could only secure two living prisoners.

Meanwhileall the enemy's sungarsblazed with rifle fire. They thought they werefacing a despairing sally of the garrison, and they especially turned their fire on the neighbourhood of the water tower, from which they expected another rush. Inside the fort everyonewas busy answering back from loophole and parapet,especially on the side that commandedthe garden. "Even the Sikhs inhospital," writes Sir G. Robertson, "came crawling out, seized rifles,and crept on the parapets. Several of them hadlost half their feet from frostbite, and were obliged to hobble sideways,or even swarm up the notched poles, whichdid duty for ladders. All alike were full of battle-madness, and shouting with joy at the prospect of a fight in the broad day, and to support their 'brothers' outside. It was long before there was a semblance of order. . . .

Wounded men soon began to stagger back from the garden, or were carried to hospital, whereWhitchurch wasbusilyplying hismerciful work. One poor water-carrier came in with his jaw brokenbya bullet. The wound was dressed andhis face bound up. Regardless of theinjury and its accompanying shock, he humped his great skin bag on to his loins, and was starting out again when IStopped him. He protested, and, finding me obdurate, sat down and wailed that his poor Sikhs were dying for water he might not carry them."

About twenty Chitralis had dashedout of the tunnel to meet their sale, when Harley,thinking all was clear,climbed down into it andarranged the powder bags and the longfuse. He hadjust done so whentwo more desperatemen struggled out,breaking the powder hose,and destroying the tamping of the charge. Harley clambered out and found a length of tube he had kept in reserve,and was about to jump into the shaft again when there was a loudexplosion;he was knocked down, and the broad flame that burst into the summer-house burned the clothe- and turbans of the nearest Sikhs. It was a narrow escape. If the explosion had come a moment later Harley wouldhave been killed. The party then retired into the fort. They had held the summer-house for more than anhour.

Harley wasutterly depressed as he explained to Robertson that thepowder bags hadexploded prematurely,and only broken down about three feet of the passage near the mouth of the mine. The Chitralis would be into it again after dark, peril. Could a counter-mine bedug to meet it ? No there was no time. There must be a sortie. It wasrightly conjectured that the mine began in aloopholed summer-house heldby the enemy abouteighty yardsfrom the fort. The summerhouse was to be rushedby forty Sikhs,supported by sixtyof theKashmirrifles. LieutenantHarley, the very type of a dashing young Irish soldier, was given the command of the perilous enterprise. The attempt was to be madeat 4 p.m., andpreparations at oncebegan.

Silently and carefullythe stones wereremoved from a barricadethat closed a gateopening from the fort into the garden. Harley got read}- two bags, charged each with some fifty pounds of powder, and a length of canvas hose filled with powder to be used as a fuse. As the hour approached, the walls and loopholes on the garden side werestealthilymanned, andHarley's men waited, with bayonets fixed, in the narrow passageinside the improvised sally-port. At last everything was ready. "All hearts stopped beating for an instant," says Robertson. "Everyone knew, and at that moment felt more than ever, the awful significance of that incessant pick,pick, picking, at the foot of the Gun tower, and approaching nearer andm each stroke with suggestions of overwhelmingcatastrophe. It made one feel sick to 1 how everything depended upon the summerhouse being merely occupied by riflemen, and not beinginvincible byreason ofits defences."

Rushing out at the head of his men,Harley dashedat the summer-house. Surprised as they were, its garrison sprang to their rifles and fired onevolley,whichkilled two and woundedathird of the leading group. One of those who fell was a Kashmir rifleman, a Goorkha who, in his eagerness for the fight, had made his way into the front rank, the place assigned to the Sikhs. Happily, the summer-house was not properly fortified. There was no regular barricade, only a pile of green faggots to stop bullets ; these were pushed aside, anel the party cleared the littlebuilding with the bayonet.

Harley had now to hoid the house,find the mine,clear out the Chitralis at work init, and blow it up with his powderbags. Fired on from allsides, his little party repliedwith a few steady -. Then volunteers were called for to enter the mine. As the first man, a Kashmir, dropped in, the Chitralis tried to make their way out. They could only come one at a time, ■and as each appeared he was stabbed and dashed, or shot. Such was the furious excite-