Two days later, August 19, Brigadier-General Elles, telegraphing to Simla, stated that Sir Richard Udny had informed him that Malik Amin Khan’s information was much exaggerated, adding that Captain Barton, Commandant of the Khyber rifles, had reported the Afridi gathering to be smaller than originally imagined. On the next day, August 20, alarmed at the gravity of his position and advised by the officer commanding the Peshawar forces, Sir Richard Udny withdrew Captain Barton from his post at Lundi Kotal. After consultation with Colonel Aslam Khan and Brigadier-General Elles, on the same day in a telegram to the Punjab Government, he advocated, in spite of the objections of Colonel Aslam Khan to such a policy, the leaving of the defence of the Khyber positions to the unsupported activities of the native levies, in accordance with the terms of the Khyber Agreement of 1881 by which the Afridis were made responsible for the safety of the pass. In this singular point of view Brigadier-General Elles concurred, contenting himself, in spite of the condition of affairs with a faint-hearted and useless promenade in the direction of Jamrud. Meanwhile, with assistance withheld, disaster was deliberately invited. So it happened that, on August 23, when Sir Richard Udny, in a telegram to the Government of India, was again referring to the terms of the Khyber Agreement, the advancing wave of the Afridi tide actually broke against Ali Masjid. From early morning of this day Afridi met Afridi in a brief, bloody struggle round British supremacy in this border stronghold. True to their salt, the men who had been in charge of our posts held out against their own tribesmen until unsupported resistance was no longer possible. Fort Maude and Ali Masjid fell that same night, Lundi Kotal resisted valiantly until August 25, capitulating almost at the moment when the Orakzais were advancing to the attack against the Samana ridge. There the position was cleared by General Yeatman Biggs who, having reinforced the garrisons, dissipated his victory in an ignominious withdrawal harried by his enemy. Tactical blundering thus accomplished at this point what political irresolution had effected in respect of the Khyber. [Illustration: ALI MASJID FORT] In whatever degree the Amir of Afghanistan by his letter of August 18, may have exculpated himself from events preliminary to the Tirah campaign, the exodus of armed bands from Afghan territory continued to meet with only passive resistance from the frontier officials. Under pressure of accumulating evidence, forwarded direct from Kabul by the British agent, the Viceroy of India on August 30, 1897, addressed a further communication to Abdur Rahman, in the course of which he wrote: