DEFENCE OF SARAGHERI. 487 called Bahit Khel, a tower closing a mountain path. It was held by an Afridi native havildar, or sergeant,with twenty men. The besiegers called on the havildar by his name, urging him to make common cause with them,but he and his handful of men remained true to their salt, and held the tower till thearrival of therelieving force.

be absolutely correct, but at all eventsno more reliable account of the fall of Saragheri will ever be obtainable."

During the fighting a small party had gone out from Fort Lockhart to try to help the beleagueredgarrison,but they wereforced to retire before overwhelming numbers of the enemy. On the sameday Fort Gulistan was closely besieged by the Orakzais. As soon as Saragheri was taken, the tribesmen who had made the attack joined their forces to those who were investing Gulistan. The fort washeld by a detachmentof the 36th Sikhs, under Major Des Voeux, 165 rifles inall. In the night the enemy established themselves in sungars close up to one of the anglesof the fort. It was seared that they might undermine or breach the wall from this point, and Colour-Sergeant Kala Singh of the Sikhs volunteeredto make a sortie with only sixteen men, and turn them out. The tribesmen at this point were about 200 strong. Kala Singh and his men got within twenty yards of the sungars before they werediscovered. They wererushing on with the bayonet, when they were received with a fire that killed or woundedhalf the party. Checked by this loss they yet wouldnot retreat, but lay down among the rocks less than ten yards from the enemy, and answered back their fire. Then, on his ,nvn initiative, another Sikh, Colour-Sergeant Sunder Singh, came out with twelve men to help his comrades. Thus reinforced,KalaSingh rushed the sungars and drove the Orakzais out of them, the enemy being so vigorously attacked, that in the darkness they had no idea how few their assailants really were. The gallant band brought back three captured standards into the fort. Kala Singh, its heroicleader, was so seriously wounded that he dieda few days later On September 10th General Yeatman-Biggs, after somesharp skirmishing, checked an attempt of the Orakzais and Afridis to advance to the eastward from the Samana Range. The tribesmen then turned their attention to the forts and police posts further west, on the range itself. There are two1'arge sorts,Fort Lockhart and Fort Cavagnari or Gulistan, and between them there was a small post known as Fort Saragheri,held by a detachment of Sikhs, and usedas a signalling station tokeep up communicationbetweenForts Lockhart and Gulistan.

Saragheri was badly constructed and badly placed for defence. There was plenty of good cover for the attack within onehundredyards of its tower,and its entrance was a woodendoor on the level of theground. Thegarrisonconsistedof twenty-onemenofthe 36thSikhs. Theyheldthe littlefort fromninein the morningof September 12th tillhalf-past four in the afternoon. "Two determined assaults were brilliantly repulsed," wrote a correspondent of the Pioneer," but at the third rush the enemy succeeded in breaking down the door, and when the plucky Sikhs manning the wall rushed down from their posts todefend the doorway, the swarming tribesmen scaled the walls, and all was over. But not a sepoy even then tho..G'-t of surrendering while life remained, and eventual!} the whole of the gallant defenders fell victims to their heroism. Onestout-hearted soldierintheguard-roomkilled twenty of the enemy without hurt to himself, and lost his life by refusing to budge when the Afridis, unable to get at him, finally set the room on fire. The signaller, as brave as the rest, coolly kept up communication with Fort Lockhart up to the very last moment. The entire garrison, in fact, behaved with splendid courage, and there is perhaps no moretouching instance of inflexible devotion to duty than this in the whole narrative of frontier sighting. The details of the fighting will neverbe known, for not a soldier came out of Saragheri alive, but if it could be told it would beyond doubt be one of the most thrilling that Sikh valour has ever furnished. The facts related here came mainly from the enemy, andmay not For two more days anel nights the garrison held out, cleisely blockaded and fired upon for the last thirty-six hours without a moment's respite. On September 15th rescue arrived. General Yeatman-Biggs, having marched from Hangu with a battery of artillery, a squadron of Bengal Lancers, the Royal Irish Fusiliers, two battalions of the 2nd Punjaub Infantry,and some companiesof the 36th Sikhs, cleared theneighbourhood of Fort Lockhart of the enemy,shelled them out of Saragheri, and pushing steadily on drove some 8,000 of them from their postsbefore Fort Gulistan.

"By 2 p.m.," writes the special correspondent of the Pioneer with the relieving force, "we were within its walls. Blackened with gunpowder,